DOES THE BIBLE really really EXIST?

by Terry 87 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • Terry
    Terry

    It is true that Paul never mentiones the sermon on the mount, the ressurection of Lazarus, what happened at the Lord's supper, etc. in his letters.

    Only Paul knows why, maybe because he choose to focus on Jesus's message of the ressurection and not the messages of Jesus's life, who knows?

    The gospels were put together after he died but I am sure the oral tradtions were around, though he himself was not "in" the Jerusalem community to h ear them, but we are just specualting one way or another

    Ahhhhh, but---were the Gospel writer's more influenced by PAUL's theology. After all, the Apostles seemed not to undertand a thing Jesus said!

  • BurnTheShips
    BurnTheShips
    After all, the Apostles seemed not to undertand a thing Jesus said!

    Before Jesus' death, they didn't. But after the resurrection, they did. They received the holy spirit, which would teach them.

    http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+15:26&version=NIV

    after the resurrection:

    http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2020:22&version=NIV

    and finally, at the pentecost:

    http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts%202:1-4&version=NIV

    Ahhhhh, but---were the Gospel writer's more influenced by PAUL's theology.

    Also, in Acts 15, we see that Paul submitted the issue of the day to the Apostles at Jerusalem. He accepted their determination on the matter of circumcision:

    http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+15&version=NIV

    Paul's teaching was authoritative and accepted, and Peter himself did not gainsay it, he simply criticized incorrect interpretations of it:

    http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Peter%203:14-16&version=NIV

    BTS

  • insearchoftruth
    insearchoftruth

    I have a lot of reading here to do, so good to see you Terry, you have great ideas and insight!

  • Mad Sweeney
    Mad Sweeney

    Brief nitpick for PSac. Didn't Paul lay out the Lord's Supper in 1 or 2 Corinthians? Seems like I hear it at least once a year. Interesting that the JW Memorial prefers to use Paul's version rather than one of the gospel accounts.

  • Terry
    Terry

    It would not be a difficult argument to make that PAUL invented Christianity in its most virulent form. The Gospel writers looked over Paul's shoulder, as it were, and things went from there.

    Just as Judaism really wasn't a monolithic religion but a loose confederation of competing tribal notions handed down over centuries and welded together by rituals of sacrifice at the Temple....so too Christianity was dozens of opinions without orthodoxy until a STORYLINE developed around a central character: Jesus.

    I think Christianity today is more properly PAULIANITY.

    Count the enforcements and policies and rule-making in churches and look who is being quoted. Yep, most often it is Paul!

    Layers and layers like sediment have sifted in. Christians are like archaeologists figuring it all out.

  • PSacramento
    PSacramento
    Brief nitpick for PSac. Didn't Paul lay out the Lord's Supper in 1 or 2 Corinthians? Seems like I hear it at least once a year. Interesting that the JW Memorial prefers to use Paul's version rather than one of the gospel accounts.

    Yes Paul mentions the Last Supper but I don't think he goes into great deatial about Judas's betrayal, the feet washing, the session of full contact groin slapping, or goes into detail about his trial afterwards, he just focuses on the actual meaning and ritual.

    If I recall correctly...

  • myelaine
    myelaine

    dear Terry...

    welcome back!

    "Even the most ardent Theological expert is hard-pressed to speak knowingly about the character known as HOLY SPIRIT or HOLY GHOST."

    Jesus spoke knowingly about the Holy Spirit. Clearly it isn't a question of "someone" not knowing but "someone" not accepting or understanding His knowledge.

    believers were filled with the Holy Spirit on acceptance of Jesus as the Christ(acts 1:4) but it wasn't until the Spirit was poured out on them that the "power of the Spirit" was realized.(acts 1:8)

    Thinking and understanding are two different but equally necessary kinds of knowing.

    A fine book about the Spirit: Hermann Gunkel, "The Influence of the Holy Spirit".

    love michelle

  • Terry
    Terry

    "Even the most ardent Theological expert is hard-pressed to speak knowingly about the character known as HOLY SPIRIT or HOLY GHOST."

    Jesus spoke knowingly about the Holy Spirit. Clearly it isn't a question of "someone" not knowing but "someone" not accepting or understanding His knowledge.

    During World War II everywhere G.I.'s went throughout the theatre of war a cryptic message greeted them scrawled on walls, bricks, billboards and buildings. The chalk drawing of a face barely peering over a chalk wall with the mysterious words: KILROY WAS HERE!

    I suspect the work of Holy Spirit.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here

    It seems that, historically speaking, nobody who has ever spoken about the Holy Spirit has bothered to identify, individuate and delineate any facts which allow us to have a meaningful conversation concerning Holy Spirit.

    We know more about the Spirit of Christmas Past than Holy Spirit.

    We are told the worst sin imaginable is the SIN AGAINST Holy Spirit while, at the same time, completely and utterly failing to describe exactly WHAT that sin consists of!!

    My opinion is that the same mentality that conjured the character Holy Spirit out of the mind's imagination must have also created KILROY.

    I'm speaking metaphorically, you see.

    Just my opinion. Your mileage may vary....

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