Bible Questions?

This will follow simple reasoning with you:

Jesus is LORD. The prophet Ezekiel, as I have posted, said that the gate by which the LORD enters the word would be shut and only he shall go through. Mary is perpetually a virgin.

 

And ignoring them can lead to novelties being brought into the Holy Church and trying to make it "nicer".

 

But that quote can be interpreted in lots of different ways. Is there anything that clearly states in the Bible that Mary remained a virgin until her death? If there is not, than my humble opinion is that this is simply Catholic idealism.

 

Pile the sins of the tribe unto a goat and send it into the desert to die and thus free the village of sin, scapegoating in other words.

Vicarious redemption through human sacrifice.

Can you post a link supporting the death on a cross?

 

No,

but there is also nothing that clearly states Jesus' nature (of humanity and divinity), the Trinity, neither the End Times. I would argue that it is Protestant novelty because it was believed for over 1000 years, unquestioned, until certain people broke away from the Church of Christ.

People seem to have it all figured out when Russia will attack Israel with the aid of Iran...

When the Archangel Gabriel told Mary she would conceive a son, she asked "How can this be since I am a Virgin." (Lk 1:33) It's an odd question given that she was about to get married. Why wouldn't she think she would have the baby in the usual way with Joseph, right after they got married? Perhaps because she knew she was to remain a virgin and have a chaste marriage with Joseph. Perhaps this had been revealed to her at an earlier time. The angel was not at all angry with her seemingly idiotic question. When Zachariah asked the same question "How will I know this is so" (Lk 1:17) regarding the birth of John the Baptist to an elderly Elizabeth, God punished him for his doubt. (Lk 1:20) But Mary wasn't doubting God. She honestly didn't know how she would have a child and remain a virgin in her marriage.

In the English language we say "I am hungry" and we say "I am human." One state of being is temporary and the other is permanent. "Being hungry" is temporary but "being human" is ongoing. Greek has two different words for the temporary and permanent states. Mary used the permanent state of the verb "I am a virgin" which meant that her virginity would be ongoing. Why didn't she use the temporary state of the verb in the phrase "I am a virgin" since she was about to be married? Catholics think she knew it would be a chaste marriage. http://www.davidmacd.com/catholic/mary_perpetual_virgin.htm

Also James and Joseph and Simon and Judas in Matt 13:55 are identified as the sons of "another Mary" in Matt 27:56. Simon appears to be Simon the Cananean of Matt 10:4. Judas is said to be the son of James in Luke 6:16.

Mark 6:3 has James and Joses and Judas and Simon. James and Joses are identified in Matt 15:40 as from "another Mary". these two other Marys are probably the Mary in John 19:25 to whom Clopas is married. Judas and Simon also appear in Matthew's first list.



The idea that Mary had other children first surfaced from a guy named Helvidius around 380 A.D. and it caused quite a stir cause no one held that belief at the time. Jerome, responded with a treatise called On the Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Mary. Jerome had access to much documentation from the early Church and he cited earlier well known Christian writers such as Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, and Justin Martyr. Helvidius was unable to come up with a reply.

Joseph also disappears after Luke 2. Jesus is 12, no mention of other children running amok. where did Mary get these other children?

 

"Alexamenos, worship God."
A first century derogatory image of a Christian worshiping his ass-headed God on a cross.
http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/alex_graffito.htm

Yes, Jesus was a scapegoat, but he was more. Like the Epistle to the Hebrews says, the sacrifices in the Temple could not eradicate the sins of mankind, but through Christ's divine sacrifice, those who have faith are made pure.
Christians who downplay the sacrifice and imply that it is the resurrection only that saves us are mistaken.
Forgetting the (brutal) death of Christ is to forget his mission.


John 20:25 also makes reference to the "nails" that put holes in his hands. If he was crucified on a stake, then it would likely have been one nail.

 

Can i have the book that you got that from?

 

" 'Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us,' wrote Paul"

 

Couldn't Mary have kids after Jesus, after the age of 12? I am six years apart from my sister; I could have been six years more.

Perhaps writing about her other children were not important except for that one verse where Jesus points out to his mother and brothers and tells them that we can become like his brothers (and his family) if we have faith in him.

Or were they just spiritual brothers that he was pointing out, but why would he say this if he had said, "like them" ?

"Not entering the gate" could mean that no one shall pass through for when Jesus is conceived; it wouldn't matter what happens after.

Also, why would the Bible say that she didn't have relations until after Jesus? Couldn't that just mean that she was a virgin for Jesus and not a virgin after?

 

....and later in Matthew he said it was impossible.

What is better. To do good works out of selfish ambition to get to heaven or out of simple compassion for others?

Christ died on the cross not for himself, but for others and the domino effect continues to this day. That's why I think of Christianity as a movement and not a religion. Religion is all about doing something to get something in return whereas a movement is about giving to others the way Christ gave to us.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like you believe that only the most spiritually fit make it to heaven. I have to dissagree with this.

 

Simple compassion for others.

I never saw Christianity as a religion either.

Where in Matthew did he say it was impossible?

 

Matthew 19:26.

What attracts me to Christianity is the compassion I see in other Christians not fear of going to hell or desire to go to heaven.

Compassion just opens you up to see the way things are "all connected"

 

"Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep aloof from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us." 2 Thessalonians 3:6
"Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation." 2 Peter 1:20

"No prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation"... This shews plainly that the scriptures are not to be expounded by any one's private judgment or private spirit, because every part of the holy scriptures were written by men inspired by the Holy Ghost, and declared as such by the Church; therefore they are not to be interpreted but by the Spirit of God, which he hath left, and promised to remain with his Church to guide her in all truth to the end of the world. Some may tell us, that many of our divines interpret the scriptures: they may do so, but they do it always with a submission to the judgment of the Church (to whom Christ left the sound teaching, and the power to correct matters of heresy), and not otherwise.


Note that Paul does not say that they received the tradition in the form of Scripture (Paul's writings were the only Christian Scripture at the time, and when they were written were only for particular churches). The OT was and still is Scripture.

Who was it who needed to declare that Christ was not crucified on a cross? Who was it who declared that crucifixes are bad and we should instead have bare crosses? When did these changes come. Did Paul write that the crucifix was something to be ashamed of. Did Christ say that we should forget his suffering?

 

She could have, but she didn't.

These would have made them about 15 or so when Jesus was preaching. Why would a 15 year old (and younger children) try to basically take control of a thirty year old because they thought he was mad. I do not think that was even a possibility in antiquity.

 

That's just it, as far as I am aware, it says no-where in the Bible that Mary did not have a normal marital life with Joseph, only Catholic doctrine states this in definite.
I still believe it is nothing but idealism that Mary should have to remain celibate.

 

And the churches of the East, and Martin Luther, and John Calvin, and Ulrich Zwingli, and John Wesley, and some Anglicans (although they do not consider it dogmatic)...

So, that would be the majority of Christians in the world are in religions where they espouse the perpetual virginity of Mary in one way or another.

 

Actually Christians have no symbol for the Christ, in harmony with the principle given in the 2nd commandment not to make graven images. I don't know who you are talking about.

There is no evidence that the Greek word stau·ros′ is a cross such as the pagans used as a religious symbol for many centuries before Christ.

In the classical Greek the word stau·ros′ meant merely an upright stake, or pale, or a pile such as is used for a foundation. The verb stau·ro′o meant to fence with pales, to form a stockade, or palisade, and this is the verb used when the mob called for Jesus to be impaled. It was to such a stake, or pale, that the person to be punished was fastened, just as the popular Greek hero Prometheus was represented as tied to rocks. Whereas the Greek word that the dramatist Aeschylus used to describe this simply means to tie or to fasten, the Greek author Lucian (Prometheus, I) used a·na·stau·ro′o as a synonym for that word. In the Christian Greek Scriptures a·na·stau·ro′o occurs but once, in Heb 6:6. The root verb stau·ro′o occurs more than 40 times, and should be rendered “impale,” “Or, ‘fasten on a stake (pole).’”

The inspired writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures wrote in the common (koi·ne′) Greek and used the word stau·ros′ to mean the same thing as in the classical Greek, namely, a simple stake, or pale, without a crossbeam of any kind at any angle. There is no proof to the contrary. The apostles Peter and Paul also use the word xy′lon to refer to the torture instrument upon which Jesus was nailed, and this shows that it was an upright stake without a crossbeam, for that is what xy′lon in this special sense means. (Ac 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Ga 3:13; 1Pe 2:24) In LXX we find xy′lon in Ezr 6:11 (1 Esdras 6:31), and there it is spoken of as a beam on which the violator of law was to be hanged, the same as in Ac 5:30; 10:39.

The Latin dictionary by Lewis and Short gives as the basic meaning of crux “a tree, frame, or other wooden instruments of execution, on which criminals were impaled or hanged.” In the writings of Livy, a Roman historian of the first century B.C.E., crux means a mere stake. “Cross” is only a later meaning of crux. A single stake for impalement of a criminal was called in Latin crux sim′plex. One such instrument of torture is illustrated by Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) in his book De cruce libri tres, Antwerp, 1629, p. 19.

The book Das Kreuz und die Kreuzigung (The Cross and the Crucifixion), by Hermann Fulda, Breslau, 1878, p. 109, says: “Trees were not everywhere available at the places chosen for public execution. So a simple beam was sunk into the ground. On this the outlaws, with hands raised upward and often also with their feet, were bound or nailed.” After submitting much proof, Fulda concludes on pp. 219, 220: “Jesus died on a simple death-stake: In support of this there speak (a) the then customary usage of this means of execution in the Orient, (b) indirectly the history itself of Jesus’ sufferings and (c) many expressions of the early church fathers.”

Paul Wilhelm Schmidt, who was a professor at the University of Basel, in his work Die Geschichte Jesu (The History of Jesus), Vol. 2, Tübingen and Leipzig, 1904, pp. 386-394, made a detailed study of the Greek word stau·ros′. On p. 386 of his work he said: “σταυρός [stau·ros′] means every upright standing pale or tree trunk.” Concerning the execution of punishment upon Jesus, P. W. Schmidt wrote on pp. 387-389: “Beside scourging, according to the gospel accounts, only the simplest form of Roman crucifixion comes into consideration for the infliction of punishment upon Jesus, the hanging of the unclad body on a stake, which, by the way, Jesus had to carry or drag to the execution place to intensify the disgraceful punishment. . . . Anything other than a simple hanging is ruled out by the wholesale manner in which this execution was often carried out: 2000 at once by Varus (Jos. Ant. XVII 10. 10), by Quadratus (Jewish Wars II 12. 6), by the Procurator Felix (Jewish Wars II 15. 2), by Titus (Jewish Wars VII. 1).”

Evidence is, therefore, completely lacking that Jesus Christ was impaled on two pieces of timber placed at right angles. We do not want to add anything to God’s written Word by inserting the pagan cross-concept into the inspired Scriptures, but should render stau·ros′ and xy′lon according to the simplest meanings. Since both stau·ros′ and xy′lon basically mean stake and Jesus used stau·ros′ to represent the suffering and shame or torture of his followers (Mt 16:24), stau·ros′ can be understood as “torture stake,” to distinguish it from xy′lon, which is used more in the sense of “stake,” or “tree,” as in Ac 5:30.

 

Nice try but it's Jehovah that goes through the temple gate not Jesus and the temple does not represent Mary.

If you believe this temple to be Mary, then I'm not sure I want to know what you think Ezekiel entering into the other gates of this temple means.

 

I think ignoring them can lead to your worship being pleasing to God and isn't that what we are aiming for?

 

The very scapegoating that you mention is symbolic of what Jesus would be sent by God to do.