by Terry 12 Replies latest watchtower bible
What I find interesting is that the idea of atonement has not been elaborated on untill quite late in the gospels for example: Matth 20 (ca 45 AD)and barely a few lines are devoted to that. The only real difference there is the gospel of John but then again that one comes at least 30 - 60 years after Jesus. Quite some time to develop some fancy religious idea. And that brings us to Pauline letters.
Cheers
Borgia
Terry, AlanF wrote a masterpiece on the subject of the Ransom. You will find it on his site. I'm not computer savy to copy, cut and paste it here. I would appreciate it if you would do that. I don't want to steal your thunder, just add to it. You are one of my favorite poster's on this site.
Blueblades, who has no need of a ransom.
The best I can make of it - is that it was a defining moment engineered by aliens to push the worlds culture in a new direction.
Human society needs to feel that someone in the universe has confidence in their ability to transcend their intrinsic selfishness.
A perfect human giving his life to atone for selfishness gives humans a model.
It doesn't matter whether the human sacrifice in reality was a perfect human or that he really died and was resurrected. It IS important that it have the appearance of having occurred.
Coupled with that event is the focus on a governement that will come from the sky and the need to renounce the divisiveness of nationalism.
I believe this scenario is a possibility. The traditional interpretation is too primitive and illogical.
