chockfull

Saul of Tarsus could become the linchpin in someone’s faith I guess. I mean if you just compare surface stories it might show similarities between Saul of Tarsus, Joseph of Utah, and Victor of Ohio. Should we do a harmony of the meeting Jesus stories?

The essence is questioning the reliability of Josephus given nobody claims divine inspiration for his writings but many want to squeeze that last bit of profit making juice out of scriptural writing.

3rd party from the authority. Its the North Korea News Network oh the dictator is so smart, accomplished, beautiful, desired, intelligent. Long live the dictator.

Ok so we have an immigrant who doesn’t speak the common language writing history in the new language. And he might have mixed in a few inappropriate colloquialisms like me learning all the cuss words in Spanish first? And we don’t see any problems here with arriving at “sola scripture” through external sources? Sheesh the first 100 yards of this walk is nothing but garbage laying around.

Yeah and also we have the VPW “new and improved harmony of the gospels 2.0” in the book written by Charlene’s co-workers “Jesus Christ Our Passover”. The lack of harmony produced a gap allowing Metallica to insert a band in there and make their own harmony with “Enter the Sandman” and “Nothing Else Matters”. As an obscure reference, this also won’t translate lol

So the Google translate of the 2nd century did a real bad job translating jokes? I guess that is why TWI latched onto George Lamsa and the other manners and customs guy so hard. Any language departing from the direct description and going into ideology or myth or stories doesn’t translate well at all. And vague language gives plenty of room for extreme interpretation. And extreme fundamentalist interpretation is where VP lived breathed and made his fortune off of unsuspecting dupes like us.

So to clarify my bias I kinda rejected giving a f about a priests opinion written in Latin about a biased history account written around Christs lifetime. Maybe this is a fundamentalist argument that I do not care about enough to give proper attention to all the arguments of the anthropologists dusting pottery shards. I haven’t read Carrier all the way just a summary so I will to grasp that perspective.

Well thankfully we have RC history to describe it in Latin, label it FT for obscurity, and assign a priest with a doctoral degree to safeguard it as “doctrine”. I’ve read literary works translated from their original language to English. I think I miss a fair deal of context from just that. Chaucer might not communicate the same Over Google Translate. Josephus from my impression - did he run a local Hebrew newspaper? It was all 3rd party info he described not direct interaction and contact. Eusebius if I remember right was 2nd century I have to read up again on him it’s been a while. I think he supposedly quotes Josephus also. But I remember thinking when reading Eusebius that whoever writes down their opinion becomes the surviving view of the time. There were not multiple people writing with different viewpoints. I think the harmony of the gospels seems like the first attempt at a consolidated history.

On the who pretended to be whom front do you have any anthropological references on Pauline epistles? What are your sources? There is a common storyline of Paul in prison verbally dictating letters to a scribe. Where does this fit in to forgery theories or allegations?

What is my bias in this discussion? I have departed from fundamentalist views and as such don’t hold as high of a value on “textual criticism” or modern anthropology extrapolating truth from pottery shards in as high of a regard as I did while a cult member. Disclosure statement.

Thank you. From sentence 4 the scholarly consensus if you have to call it that was that it has an “authentic nucleus” with interpolations.

Yes from delving into Josephus and Eusebius by reading them they are opinionated and there is no baseline of “scientific method” to measure their writings against. And there is evidence of forgeries there like the old scriptural artifacts from what I’ve read.

So to clarify terms here what you are saying is that “scholarly consensus” is that TF contains partial authenticity and Carriers argument is an outlying opinion from “scholarly consensus”. It seems Google plus a tad of logic is your friend lol. Just quoting N there not spinning you up.

My point was that rather than someone providing a fictional story about their opinion of what “scholarly consensus” means for the sake of conversation can we just post the links plus a summary? This is now 3 posts in the off topic category and this one seems designed to make me new friends.

I mean sometimes time and political climate in a local area can completely affect not seeing any history or resources on a topic. Like for example let’s go research the history of the detractors of Kim Jong Un. Just for fun. How does Fox’s Book of Martyrs come into play evaluating the climate for Christian narrative and writings of the time?

And you have a sarcastic wit like myself which can help or hinder research lol

Is this like the quote on how 95% of statistics are made up on the fly including this one? Would it not be more helpful to summarize the scholarly consensus and provide detail like so we all can trace the logic?

I have not delved in depth into the current climate of archaeology and sociologists on this topic of the authenticity of Jesus earthly life from a scientific proof perspective. I don’t really know how that would be a fruitful endeavor given the scarcity of external resources. We have Josephus and Eusebius I’m aware of and have looked at. The TV you guys are referencing seems to be just a small section in Josephus where he writes about Jesus being the Messiah. The common scholar views on it contain 2 extremes - it is 100% true it is 100% false and also the consensus seems to be down the middle with it having some accurate accounts and some interpolation and cross referencing. The whole field of sociology extrapolates stories and thesis papers from pottery. So I am not real sure what the goal is in this exercise.

From the timeline and his own letters and testimony, Paul’s accounts were meeting Jesus Christ after his resurrection. So from a straight logical perspective if Paul was traveling in Pharisee circles prior to his conversion he would not have and did not by any account have any live interaction with Jesus. So no Paul might not be useful in establishing facts about the life of Jesus pre resurrection. From any point of logic regardless of beliefs.

Hey annio! Thanks for sharing. I appreciate hearing about your growth and movement post TWI. It sounds like you have found a comfortable presence of the body of Christ in your area and that’s great! To me some of the difference in views are exactly that - now I can be part of a larger body of Christ as described in scripture where all parts are valued and part of a greater Christian extended family where common grassroots virtues and goals are shared and there is tolerance for differences in the body without an extreme cult-like view. Where all members in Christ are equal and important and not to be treated like rock stars with entourages. Denominations have good and bad aspects including accountability and governance of course flaws creep in to human constructs. There are some cool community churches around too and some concept based churches with no denominational governance. It’s kind of like a huge family worldwide with different languages cultures and ideas can be dysfunctional at times like most families. I like it personally a lot more than the bondage of being a slave to “bring the heart of the BOD to all believers on the field and strive to run classes according to the overseers directed annual schedule”. I like it personally a lot more than the recently trademarked “WOW” phrase that will serve as trademarked justification for the same ongoing for future generations. Want to go in a different philosophical or spiritual direction? I think my faith in God says He is fair enough to see your heart and reward you for your efforts. If people made it more about Him and less about them then maybe there wouldn’t be a ton heading for the hills. Congrats on your continued faith and local family!

I don’t see the Way changing much at all anymore now than they did with the last wave of requests for change. Those resulted in shunning. What a lovely example of the body of Christ functioning together as one with a bunch of major factions each with their own leadership shunning one another. They do not have the elements or capacity to change as they have cemented themselves into their patterns and positions as their major achievement in life. As a group of Christians it is probably available for the lay follower to live a relatively benign Christian life in the Way as long as they mouth the support for the leaders often and not be too controversial. Certainly don’t do any Biblical research studies and send them in. The leadership is rife with Machiavellian politics and that has existed through several iterations of leadership. For me, I was seeking a grassroots Christian movement kind of like the Jesus Revolution portrays. To me that had life excitement appeal and a future. What it actually turned out to be was for me a huge disappointment. For me it lost or never had the real heart of Christianity that I had experienced as a new Christian introduced from denominational Christianity. Paper games with petty egotists is what it turned to be.

Is this where the friction from all the paper rubbing going on marking capital and lower case H’s and “also’s” cause spontaneous combustion?

Hello Cults S3 news followers. One of the questions that I had for many years was “do cults change?” And the following “what causes change?” In the JW world we are seeing some changes. https://www.reddit.com/r/exjw/s/7M8iDVVflL They are changing some minor policies that people complained the most about. Then you hear rumors about the big questionable policies. For JWs the main ones are shunning and the blood transfusion issue. There are rumors of a new policy of “everyone follow their own conscience” on the blood issue and dissolving the groups that form to pressure hospitals and families on the matter. Shunning changes are only rumored as that remains the main form of compliance control for all cults - regardless of the message they peddle, Scientology, JWs, Mormons, and The Way all share very common practices surrounding shunning. It is rumored that a drastic drop in membership is what causes the JW governing body to consider changes. Nothing about the morality of what they do enters in. Corporations also follow this pattern which is largely a self seeking selfish lust for power initiative. In reality like corporations only pain drives change in cults. Which is very strange considering the underlying unstated objective of all major religions is to increase virtue in individuals while minimizing vice. Morals don’t come into play in a Machiavellian world.

Emotional intelligence seems to me like a healthy balance. I usually find this balance while swinging by it on a Tarzan rope

Thx for the correction on the RC doctrine. I certainly have a less detailed understanding of that than you do. I’ve discussed some of teachings with relatives. Isnt there coherence between this and the process for sainthood? Those candidates bypass Purgatory and go directly to heaven? Do all other denominations subscribe to the either direct resurrection of souls to be with God or the soul sleep doctrine that the Way has?