Originally posted by Valhall
Megaquad, that would be a big negatory good buddy. The Catholic church dates back to approximately 400 a.d. with the Nicene council...not a day before....well, maybe a day, but not much more than a day. I'll give you week...that's it.

[Edited on 11-7-2003 by Valhall]

Before Nicene council christianity was simply illegal religion, prosecuted in Roman empire. Then it became 'official'.
Jesus stated in many places he wants church.
I am sure he gave instructions to Peter what needs to exist, who passed it to other christians.
St. Peter was set up as first pope by Jesus himself, and he assured there will be his successors.

"Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build My Church."    (Matthew 16:18)

"And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them." Ezechiel 34:23

"Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Feed my lambs...feed my lambs...feed my sheep.'" (John 21:15-17)

"Simon,Simon... [Peter], I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not:  and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren."    (Luke 22:31-32)

Megaquad,

By all accounts and logical thought The Revelation would have been originally recorded in Greek.

Reasons?

1.) John was born, raised and died under the Roman Empire.
2.) Even though John may have very well been able to write it in Hebrew, his audience was not Hebrew so why would he have?

Now, my question is (with that aside)...what's every body gone do when MA is right and the number is NOT 666?

SORRY...WRONG THREAD...WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!

[Edited on 11-7-2003 by Valhall]

The way I see it is that God had everything to do with the Bible. He created man and man wrote down His Word.

When it comes down to interpretation? Look deep into your heart. If you look deep enough, I believe you can see what's what!!!

It's also hard to interpret something when you don't really believe in it or you believe for the wrong reasons - you always look for a man's point of view and not what God was actually saying to us.
I guess that when you choose to believe, you see things from the other angle (I think I did ).
We may not get things absolutely right 100% of the time, but if you look hard enough, I reckon you're making a start. The difficulty comes when you try to second guess God. We're not capable of that.

So in a nutshell - How Much Input Did God have In The Bible? Answer - It's His book. All of the input is His.

It's just up to you, and you alone, how you interpret it.

Originally posted by Valhall
Megaquad,

By all accounts and logical thought The Revelation would have been originally recorded in Greek.

Reasons?

1.) John was born, raised and died under the Roman Empire.

That is absurd, where are your evidences? He was born in Galilee, otherwise much things in bible are false which is unlikely. It clearly says that he was from there, son of Zebedee.

It is probably some other John who caused misunderstanding in later interpretations, same was the case with another Peter.

2.) Even though John may have very well been able to write it in Hebrew, his audience was not Hebrew so why would he have?

Lets say you know how to speak Italian somewhat, but your prime and born language is English. In which language would you feel more comfortable to tell something important, something that will be passed to all generations?

I'll answer this in the 666 thread, where I meant to post it in the first place.

see ya there.