Born Twice - Die Once .... Born Once - Die Twice

by Perry 35 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Bonsai

  It is amazes me how popular Jesus is considering all the blood that has been spilled in his name. And consider this: not one word he has spoken, not one word he has promised has ever come true. In fact, never has there been so much hype over a man who has been dead for thousands of years and has posthumously done nothing! No kingdom on earth, no healing, no controlling the weather and natural disasters, no bringing back the dead, no cups of water turned to wine. Just a whole lot of.....................nothing.

  I think Elmo is ready to overtake Jesus in relevance.
  
• 

  Doug Mason

  Perry,

  While you complain about the way that the Watchtower modifies the text of the Bible to suit its own beliefs, this is exactly what the NT writers also did when they referenced their own religious writings. There was no canon of Hebrew Scriptures at the time (hence the many times they cited texts such as 1 Enoch).
  

  When you look at "heresies" (opinions) through the eyes of the Church Fathers, you are reading only their opinions. One person's "orthodoxy" is another person's "heresy".

  It is simply an accident of history that the Paulines became the state religion and were thus able to determine that their writings would form Scripture. The bulk of the NT is made up of wriitngs by Paul, by people who pretended to be Paul, and by people who supported Paul. Little survives from the supporters of the Jerusalem Church (such as Matthew and James). Although Peter was a leader at Jerusalem, little is known of him, while 1 Peter and 2 Peter were written by Paulines decades after Peter's death. Likewise, the Gospels were written many decades after the events they describe, and some owe their thoughts to Paul.

  Doug
• 

  Perry

  Doug,

  Several extra-biblical books are cited in the Bible in addition to Enoch. I have a copy of the book of Jasher that is also cited. It is an exciting read. These are considered historical works (history books) and as such have value. It is up to each person to decide if they are inspired or not.

  I personally view these works as uninspired, not infallible history books.

  This link covers a number of objections similar to your own, about 4/5 of the way down.

  When Dr. Thiede analyzed the fragments from Matthew’s gospel found in Egypt by what is described above as “comparative paleography,” he analyzed these fragments from the gospel of Matthew and compared them with four other well-known and reliable reference manuscripts from a commensurate and known time periods.

  • Document one: 79 A.D., from the Herculaneum

  • Document two: 73-74 A.D., from Masada

  • Document three: 65-66 A.D., from the Egyptian town of Oxyrynchus

  • Document four: 58 A.D., from Masada

  The style of handwriting from the first century is substantially different from the style of handwriting, just one hundred years later. In order to date a manuscript correctly, a handwriting style that is similar to the papyrus being analyzed must be found. For this reason, the four samples above—which came from similar areas of Israel, close to the same time period, were used. The conclusions from these careful comparisons revealed that many of the letters in these very early manuscripts bore a striking similarity to the letters in the Gospel of Matthew text that Dr. Thiede analyzed.[47]

  Because many of the letters and the style of writing were so close, Dr. Thiede concluded that these three papyrus fragments must have been written between the time of the crucifixion, at about 32 A.D, and the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 A. D. This places the date of the writing for Matthew’s gospel at the time that he would have been alive and witnessed the actual events that are recorded in his gospel account.[48]

  This means that Matthew is most certainly the true author of the gospel of Matthew.

  So, if the gospels are all later additions, where are all the polemics attacking such a revision of events? The documents were in existence at the same time as the proported eyewitnesses and authors. The above mentioned fragments were likely original, or 1 gen copies.

  I don't think the evidence points to anything other than the gospels being reliable recordings of actual events. Here are a number of other related links.

  The Historical Record of Jesus Life from Secular Sources
  Historical Evidence For Jesus Resurrection
  The Overwhelming Empirical Evidence for Jesus Death and Resurrection
  The New Testament Passes Every Literary Test of History
  Empirical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
  Empirical Integrity of the New Testament
  
• 

  Island Man

  Perry, all of your links lead to the website of a christian apologist. I don't trust the claims and reasoning of christian apologists. They exaggerate, twist, and misrepresent the facts, all in an effort to support their preconceived religious ideology. They are not really interested in truth. They're only interested in confirming their preconceived religious biases and cherry pick and twist information to that end while ignoring and denying all evidence to the contrary. I've seen them do this with the subject of evolution vs creation. Look, the third link you posted highlights the utter folly and dishonesty of christian apologists for it reads:

  "The Overwhelming Empirical Evidence for Jesus Death and Resurrection"

  Overwhelming empirical evidence, Perry? Really? Bogus claims like these are why I know that christian apologists are dishonest people who don't deserve to have any of their claims and statements taken seriously.
  
  
• 

  Perry

  I noticed that you didn't point out anything in particular that you found false.

  Given all the evidence, it is not just overwhelming, but staggering. But, we are free moral creatures. We are perfectly free to interpret the evidence any way we choose. If there wasn't such a divergence of opinion, it would cause me to doubt the existence of free moral agency. Instead, it confirms it.
• 

  Doug Mason

  Perry,

  Rather than work through the many issues one by one, I invite you to wait for a short until I commence a thread, naming it: "The Jesus-movements' First 200 Years".

  Doug