Raf

For the sake of avoiding loaded language, I'll accept that edit.

All of that is common sense and none of it requires Jesus to say anything other than what the Bible claims he said. "Disciple all nations in my name" meant exactly that. Not a trace of "you guys go to Israel. Ignore the nations I JUST TOLD YOU A SECOND AGO to make my disciples. I'm saving them for Paul." The more natural explanation is that the original Christianity was a Jewish cult and Paul was the first to see fit to spread it to the Gentiles. When Paul's Christianity proved more successful (because Jews who knew their religion knew the scriptures didn't point to Yshuah as Christ), the Jewish Christian cult had an identity crisis. The problem was solved when the gospels were written with full knowledge of Paul's doctrine. Suddenly the Jewish cult always had "Disciple all nations in my name" as part of its mission. The original 12 just couldn't handle it doncha know. So Paul was necessary! Don't you see?

I've made the comparison many times, only without names. Dodge, distract never admit. The sad thing is, there's nothing wrong with the Biblical answer. It's so simple and consistent with the gospels and Acts. Look at how hard Jesus had to work to convince Peter it was ok to preach to a Gentile. He had already told Peter IN PERSON to preach the gospel to every creature and disciple all nations in his name, and STILL he had to send visions. The problem isn't that the instructions were unclear. The problem is they had decades of culture telling them to hold back. Paul was the first one to take "disciple all nations in my name" seriously. Biblically. From the perspective of a skeptic... the disciples didn't follow the instruction because they never received it. Jesus was dead. But Biblically, he did give them that direct, unambiguous order. And the simplest explanation for their failure to act on his explicit instruction is that it ran counter to their entire lives as Jews. It is NOT that Jesus sent the 12 to Israel and Paul to the .Gentiles. Jesus explicitly sent the 12 to the Gentiles and they couldn't process it.

Am i the loudmouth? Please say I'm the loudmouth

Engine: Brutal. Call the fight!

Correct, and books with talking snakes, talking donkeys and magic men who walk on water before flying off into the clouds shouldn't have to be labeled fiction, but here we are

No ancient fictional work labels itself fiction.

oh jesus here we vegetable

5tEvidently you choose to ignore the actual words of Jesus (according to the Bible) because they conflict with your preconceived interpretation. TLC: What's the Biblical proof of x? Jesus: I said x. TLC: But where's the proof? Raf: But Jesus specifically said x. TLC: No he didn't Jesus: Yeah, actually I did. Raf: See? TLC: What do you know, atheist? Raf: But according to YOU he said it. Jesus: I did. Three times. TLC: What do you know, Raf? Jesus: I'm not Raf. TLC: I'M RIGHT DAGNABIT! Raf: Fine.

You realize they didn't DO that in the ancient world, right? Might have saved a TAD of trouble if they did.

"Your view of it" is incompatible with scripture. The scripture you cited is irrelevant to the question you asked. For some reason you seem incapable of letting it go. Jesus answered your question explicitly, according to the Bible. Take it up with him

I'm literally doing nothing other than quoting scripture, while you're stammering but, but, but, but You asked a question. I am QUOTING THE BIBLE'S ANSWER. This is KILLING you, isn't it?

Because there is no scripture to indicate otherwise

This morning I woke up because my alarm went off. Actually, I woke up about an hour early because I had a dream that my alarm went off. Anyway, I got up, prepared lunches for the kids, walked them to school. Now I'm at my office, 25 miles away from home. Made the trip instantaneously via a teleporter in my garage. At some point, hopefully, you stopped believing my story. You didn't prove it wrong. You barely entertained the possibility that it was true. You said, okay, this and that make sense, but that doesn't make the last part true. If someone were to demand that you accept all of the story or none of it, you would laugh. and not politely. Why? Because the first parts of the story are ordinary. They don't require you to believe anything other than a normal person had a normal experience. Sure, it's possible they are not true. But it is also inconsequential and mundane. But once the story became fantastical, your innate skepticism kicked in. Teleporter? You have a teleporter in your garage? No you don't. End of story! If I were to insist that it were true, you would demand proof. My testimony would be inadequate. Signed statements from witnesses might get your attention, but you would still be skeptical to say the least. Give me a belief, and I can find a group of people willing to express it. Ask Marshall Applewhite. Oh, wait, you can't. He and a bunch of his followers killed themselves to hitch a ride on the UFO trailing the comet Halle-Bopp. For real. So even if I got a bunch of people willing to swear that I teleported to the office today, you wouldn't believe it. That evidence would be inadequate for you to draw that conclusion. Ok, so here's my trump card: If I did not teleport to work today, how do you explain the fact that there's no teleporter in my garage right now? Obviously, the answer is it teleported with me to my office. Go ahead, look in my garage. You won't find a trace of the teleporter. That proves it works! Umm, no it doesn't. You're asking me to prove that something left the garage when you can't establish it was ever in the garage in the first place? You need better proof than an empty garage! And it goes on. Point is, when people make ordinary claims, the evidence required to believe such a claim is as mundane as the claim itself. But, as the late (and quite imperfect) Christopher Hitchens used to say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That a man who led a religious movement in the first century was persecuted for it is not an extraordinary claim. That he was executed by the Roman authorities for claiming he was a higher authority than the emperor or somesuch is, again, not an extraordinary claim. That the execution took place at the behest of legally zealous Jews who were so determined to kill him that they rushed to have it done via illegal, overnight sessions instead of preparing for arguably the holiest day on their calendar defies credibility. Still, could happen. But some evidence would be nice. That this condemned man was buried in a manner atypical of other condemned and executed criminals is perhaps a little less ordinary, but still credible. That the crypt or tomb belonged to a man from a place history does not record makes the claim a tad suspect. But okay. That people would want to go to the tomb any time after the burial to anoint the body with spices is... well, to our ears it seems absurd. We would probably want evidence that such a custom was not unusual in Biblical times. Again, a little bit of an unusual claim, but not improbable. You just need evidence. Not much. A little bit will do. Now, if you want people to believe that this guy got up, was a master of the art of disguise, could teleport in and out of crowded rooms, and flew up into the air after 40 days never to be seen again except in certain pieces of toast, you're going to need some real evidence. "It happened because it's hardwired into our collective imagination" is not even English, much less evidence. His apostles saw him! We don't actually know that from any of the apostles. Not one of them wrote anything making any such claim. But what about Pentecost? We have zero evidence that event ever happened and significant reason to believe it did not -- thousands of converts in a day? Yuhright. Do you know how loud you have to speak, without a microphone, to get thousands of people to even HEAR you, much less hear enough to agree with you to the point of changing religions because you were so persuasive? Just think practically. If you went to the Rock in, let's say 1982, and while you were there a handful of people started preaching that Wierwille was wrong to get rid of so-and-so in the 70s, but if you followed so-and-so you could have an abundant life beyond Wierwille's wildest dreams, how many people do you think would be persuaded? Some, to be sure. But 100? Fat chance. 1,000? Please. I mean, you might persuade tons of people eventually. Look at what Geer pulled off. But it's going to take more than one speech. But what about the empty tomb? What empty tomb? The earliest Christians never venerated or preserved the site of the tomb. Paul never mentioned it. There's no record of the empty tomb being part of the gospel story until decades after it allegedly happened. You want me to account for the fact that Jesus is no longer in a tomb you can't prove he was ever in? Condemned criminals didn't get tombs, and Joseph of Arimathea is a fictional character from a fictional place (the name of which translates to "best disciple"). Fictional characters don't donate their tombs to real people. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The evidence for the resurrection isn't even ordinary -- second hand accounts from people who claim to have learned from people who learned from people who learned from "the 12," the most extraordinary collection of human beings ever to exist before vanishing from history with barely a trace. Were it not for Paul, Jesus would have vanished from history as surely as every other Messianic claimant of the first century.

As cynical as I can be, I would refrain from making such a blanket statement. I think there are some who are sincerely trying to do their best and are not in it for the glory. That's not to say there isn't some ego involved -- a splinter group, by definition, is led by people who think they can do a better job than the group they left. But to declare them unworthy to be ministers... I don't know. It certainly applies to some, but I cannot see where it applies to all. Sincerity may not be a guarantee for truth, but it is a guarantee for sincerity.

I'm fine. I simply decline to entertain attempts to derail conversations by introducing ethereal, abstract definitions to terms no one has any trouble understanding.

Or Mr. Edward Hyde

I've learned to stop paying attention once the conversation starts going in that "words mean what I want them to vegetable" direction.

It is done. We are now in "Questioning Faith." Please check the original post on this thread; I am sure reasonable people will agree that this is where the thread belongs. Until this point, I have answered questions as though the Bible contains the definitive answers to the questions being asked. However, the original post contains a question the Bible cannot answer. I suppose it would be presumed that the atheist position is, of course he was a conman. But that's not really fair. Maybe he was and maybe he wasn't. But let's see what the Bible actually says about Paul. Paul wants us to believe (as we noted on another thread, or was it here?) that he did not learn the gospel from the apostles. He met them, according to Acts, but didn't discuss anything of significance with them. Or he didn't meet them until three years into his ministry, according to Galatians. That is not credible. Paul MUST HAVE talked to the apostles if he had information about the Last Supper. Where else would he have gotten that information? Yeah, God. Um, no. Remember that Paul is writing before the gospels were written, and he is adamant that he did not learn the gospels from the apostles. This is significant because the apostles are alive when Paul is writing. If he is lying, they could easily have called him out. They didn't. In case I am not being clear, I am insinuating that Paul invented the Last Supper and the gospel writers retconned that into the life of Jesus. It doesn't take much work to learn that Christians were not first to the table with a Eucharistic type of meal. Now, let's look back at everyone's behavior. Again, according to Paul: The apostles are very much concerned with preaching to Israel. Only Paul goes to the Gentiles. And this is a BIG DEAL. They have long discussions about the implications. Finally, they make it clear: Paul goes to the gentiles: the rest stick with Israel. WHY ON EARTH WOULD THEY DO THAT IF JESUS TOLD THEM SPECIFICALLY TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREATURE AND DISCIPLE ALL NATIONS IN HIS NAME? The easiest biblical explanation is they were stubborn. The easiest explanation is, Jesus never gave any such instruction. If he had, they would have done it. Paul went to the Gentiles first because the original apostles never dreamed of taking it outside of Israel. They had no reason whatsoever to believe otherwise until Paul forced them to contend with the issue. THEN, afterwards, the church needed to have the mission to the Gentiles come from the lips of Jesus instead of "just" Paul. Suddenly, the post-resurrection appearances (all of which were written decades after Paul's ministry) contain Jesus giving clear and unambiguous instructions to preach the gospel to every f-ing thing that moves. No explanation is given for why the apostles don't follow that exceedingly clear instruction save the vague "zealous for the law" implications in Acts. But what about being told before that they were ministers to the circumcision? Doesn't matter. If the risen Christ tells you to do something that seems to conflict with the living Christ, you either ask him for clarification or you just up-front follow the new, clear instruction. Preach the gospel to every creature is pretty danged clear. They didn't seem to ask for clarification. And they didn't follow the instruction. Either they're stupid, or the new instruction is a fantasy ret-con designed to show the faith community that what Paul was doing was specifically what Jesus instructed. Except he didn't. Jews, who know their own scriptures and prophecies, were rejecting the Christian message, so Paul sold it to people more likely to buy it: Superstitious pagans who erected shrines to unknown gods just in case they missed anyone. It's easy to say Jesus fulfilled prophecies to people who did not know the context of those prophecies and could not determine for themselves it was a load of bunk. Jews know the Book of Daniel is a work of fiction. That's why Daniel is not counted among the prophets in Jewish Bibles. Law, Psalms and Prophets, remember? Daniel is counted among the Psalms. It's a work of literature, not history. It's not because Jews don't know their holy book as well as Christians do (the arrogance!). It's easy for Gentiles to be swayed by the prophecy that a virgin shall be with child, because they do not know the context of that prophecy, which was (a) fulfilled in its own time, (b) not referring to a "virgin" as we know the term and (c) not Messianic. Prophecy after prophecy in the New Testament applied to Jesus fails on any level of inspection. "Out of Egypt have I called my son" is not a Messianic prophecy -- it's not a prophecy at all! "He shall be called a Nazarene" is not a prophecy, Messianic or otherwise. Rachel weeping for children was not a Messianic prophecy. Isaiah 53 is not a Messianic prophecy! Jews know this. That is why they are not impressed by Jesus "fulfilling" non-prophecies. The easiest people to impress were people least familiar with Hebrew scriptures. That's why Christianity leaped so easily from being a Jewish sect to being a Gentile one. Fooling Jews about their own religion was a LOT more difficult than fooling superstitious pagans about the identity of their unknown God. Why Pul converted, we'll never know. He admits persecuting the church. Acts embellishes on that admission, but the author of Acts is a liar. He lied about Jesus' birth and he flat out contradicts Paul about Paul's own life. Who are you going to believe? Was Paul a con man? Hard to tell. The "road to Damascus" story comes to us second hand. His letters don't recount it. He clearly believes he's on a mission from God. But he can't possibly know the things he claims to know about Jesus and the gospel WITHOUT having obtained that information from the apostles -- unless... unless... unless he made it up. And THAT is why the epistles precede the gospels, historically. Jesus, insofar as he existed, was an itinerant preacher who made the wrong enemies and got himself killed. Paul is the one who elevated him. Why? Why did Joseph Smith find golden tablets? Why did VPW see snow on the gas pumps? Why did Charles T. Russell's math lead him to believe Christ would return at the end of the 19th century? Different people believed different Messianic claims in the First Century. It would appear Paul not only seized on the Messiah Y'Shua movement but entirely co-opted and seized control of it, to the chagrin of those who tried and failed to make it a significant movement within Judaism. The history was rewritten using Paul as a framework, not the other way around. The Jesus of history became the Jesus of Paul's legend. History's Jesus was executed by the Romans for sedition. Paul took the crucifixion and declared it to be the work of spiritual forces on high -- no mention of Romans, Jews or Pilate. He didn't need it. No empty tomb. Who cares? People saw him. It's only when trying to relate it as a history that writers are compelled to fill in the blanks Paul did not consider necessary. Whose tomb? Joseph of the Place No One Heard of Before or Since. Who saw him first? She did. I mean they did. I mean he did. I mean... Why didn't he stay in one place? MAGIC! Did the 12 see him? Yes! All 12? Yes! Wait, no. I mean, Matthias was retroactively added to the 12 and... Mmm hmm.

wow. It's either Henry Jekyll or someone else

Questioning faith didn't exist in 2010. Nonetheless, we either move the thread or start a new one there. Your call.

I'm thinking Sherlock Holmes.

Pretty sure Smokey and the Bandit was not a remake though.

Speaking of which, Waysider, considering your opening post and your latest comments, should this thread be moved?

I was answering from a doctrinal perspective.