is jesus, god?

reply to post by ExistentialNightmare

or by belief in a "Holy Spirit".

I don't think God excludes anyone from that spirit.
You are hung up on this faith thing.
Faith, the way most people use it, is really a work. So when they say faith and works, in practical terms, they mean; works, generally, and this one particular type of work. "I am saved by faith" when they say that, they really mean, 'I did something, I exercised my capability to believe, and so because of what I did, I am saved" which according to my definition, is the wrong way to understand it. That's what I was saying yesterday, that faith is a form of ownership.
Seeking or having the desire to be something else than just someone out for themselves at the expense of others, being a goal, is what is required. There is no locked gate and watchman at that door.

reply to post by jmdewey60

Faith, the way most people use it, is really a work.

My lack of "faith" could be a "work" - Whatever you mean by work.

So when they say faith and works, in practical terms, they mean; works, generally, and this one particular type of work. "I am saved by faith" when they say that, they really mean, 'I did something, I exercised my capability to believe, and so because of what I did, I am saved"

Saved from what? I can claim that my skepticism and questioning set me free; and i still seek to better myself as a person. So again, what's so good about "faith"?

Many Christians and believers inherently find lack of faith disturbing (Much like Darth Vadar)

Of course they would have prejudice if they believed they were better people; if they believed that putting faith in the "Holy Spirit" or "GOD" was a noble thing to do. Those without belief should surely be seen as inferior, sub-par, or in many cases; worthy of Hell.

I exercised my capability to believe

Anyone can do that;

"i exercised by capability to believe that the Earth is an oblate spheroid"

"i exercised capability to believe in Ghosts; or Aliens"

that faith is a form of ownership

In what way? It's obvious that it's a slave/master relationship; but the slave (or servant) willingly submits to the master. (as shown throughout monotheistic Abrahamic doctrine; Christianity; Juduism and Islam)

Faith by definition is blind; faith is having answers before seeking answers, or asking questions, it's the opposite to science; science is humble and honest; it doesn't claim to reveal the unknown.

Seeking or having the desire to be something else than just someone out for themselves at the expense of others, being a goal, is what is required. There is no locked gate and watchman at that door.

And atheists or non-Christians need faith to do this? I don't believe so.

A challenge, perhaps?

Name a moral act that a person with faith could perform that a person without faith could not perform.

Now name a immoral act that a person with faith could perform that a person without faith could not perform. - Suicide bombing - There's one - Preaching of hellfire - There's one.

Click here for more information.

reply to post by Gary13


I think this is a good point, but there is more than one contradiction as you must know between the OT and NT. For some reason I still respect and worship Moses almost as much as Jesus. I believe in being a Jew that is a Christian. I think that is the thing that ties all realness together. I cannot be a Jewish Christian for the public to see me in all the rituals, but I can be one in my mind and my heart.

There are many people after the Christian revolution hit the world some 40 years after Christ died who use the idea as propaganda and it may get out of hand sometimes. They say all kinds of things but when put to a psycholigical test they do not observe other crucial pieces of information and earth's history. They are like the government in a sense that they like to make you think of something, whatever it may be (usually to cause fear).

Jesus said we are gods, but there is one creator Jesus referred to as father and Jesus did not say we are fathers. Let us not get Jesus's words twisted up.

Originally posted by aero56
reply to post by monkcaw

 

So, if Jesus IS God, then there are issues that Jesus God never spoke to. Exactly who is speaking throughout the scriptures, is it Jesus or not?

Oh, I agree. There are a great many questions I'm curious about too. But what He addressed is sufficient for a new birth: sin, reconciliation, salvation, His time was short, what issues are more important than these? And remember, we're all promised the Holy Spirit to be our comforter, advocate and counselor to lead us into all truth. So perhaps with some persistent prayer and fasting our issues can be addressed, after all, the Kingdom of Heaven is inside of you.

As to the second part of your post could you be more specific? Not sure what your getting at.

Originally posted by aero56
reply to post by monkcaw

 

So, if Jesus IS God, then there are issues that Jesus God never spoke to. Exactly who is speaking throughout the scriptures, is it Jesus or not?

Not.
Jesus said he was here representing for God.
The scriptures, as you say, are of a person claiming himself to be God, so not the same person.
Was that earlier person lying?
You could think of it as a literary construct, or convention, to where the reader understood that the person saying, "I, God, am telling you. . ." was not actually God, but a prophet or angel or whatever, in the story, and focus on the message. Jesus could no act in that same sort of way because he knew how the people, no matter what he may say to try to counteract this, would focus on the person speaking and ignore the actual message.
So, he does emphasize the separation between the representative, and the One being represented.
Now, that being said, it does not mean that he is not a god, and in his case, not just an ordinary god, but the Son of God, making him of the second order in the god hierarchy, only below the One, at the top.

reply to post by jmdewey60


Jesus is the Word of God, and is God. He became flesh and tabernacled amongst us 2,000 years ago.


John chapter 1.

reply to post by NOTurTypical


Again, if Jesus is God, who is speaking throughout the scriptures? If Jesus is God, then it appears that what may have been an issue in the OT, isn't in the NT.

Originally posted by aero56
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

Again, if Jesus is God, who is speaking throughout the scriptures? If Jesus is God, then it appears that what may have been an issue in the OT, isn't in the NT.

Because "testament" means covenant. So you're basically saying:

It appears what may have been an issue in the old covenant isn't in the new/current covenant.


A: Yeah, the new covenant is not the old covenant.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God.

This is saying, if one was to understand the Greek, is that whatever God was, that "is" of God, of who He was, was the same "is" that the Word was. Whatever that is, and seeing how we are only human, we can not define what exactly that "is" is. But to be of that "is" makes the person of that particular quality or of that particular nature, god. All trinitarian conventions recognize the differentiation between the individual persons of the godhead, with the exception of Oneness Pentecostals who believe God just changed from one thing to another and was always the same person, to where logic would tell you that the Father concept is only a concept and there is no actual Father out there, somewhere.

Originally posted by aero56
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

Again, if Jesus is God, who is speaking throughout the scriptures? If Jesus is God, then it appears that what may have been an issue in the OT, isn't in the NT.

The Old Testament is superseded by the New Testament. The authority of the spokesman for God, in the Old Testament is superseded by the authority of the Son of God, who is of a higher order than what appears as, or is representative of, the god of the Old Testament.

reply to post by jmdewey60

This is saying, if one was to understand the Greek, is that whatever God was, that "is" of God, of who He was, was the same "is" that the Word was.

Which "Greek"? I use the KJB, all modern translations are from either the Textus Sinaticus or Textus Vaticanus manuscripts. The KJB uses the Textus Receptus Greek. The apostolic fathers and ante-Nicean fathers rejected the Alexandrian texts as "corrupt". Modern versions also rely on the work of Westcott and Hort who were on record of having contempt for the Textus Receptus, and who rejected the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, and the blood atonement.

They removed any mention of His blood as the method we are justified, any reference to His deity, (E.g. calling Joseph Jesus's "father") et cetra.

What does that verse say in the KJB? If you want to do a Greek word study, do it in the KJB, it and modern versions has completely different manuscripts.

reply to post by NOTurTypical
I can read it in commentaries written two hundred years ago that say the same thing, so your straw-man argument is not working with me.I don't have much more to say since there is not much in you post, new. I just have to respond because I don't want people to get the idea that you could somehow be right. This westcott hort argument can only be applied in a specific number of cases. There are a lot of manuscripts out there and probably the only bible that follows just the westcott hort version is the Jehovah's Witness and they change that, too. So as far as I know there is no totally westcott hort Bible as an actual printed book you can go to your local store and pick up off the shelf.

reply to post by jmdewey60

This westcott hort argument can only be applied in a specific number of cases. There are a lot of manuscripts out there and probably the only bible that follows just the westcott hort version is the Jehovah's Witness and they change that, too. So as far as I know there is no totally westcott hort Bible as an actual printed book you can go to your local store and pick up off the shelf.

LOL, Westcott and Hort did a Greek translation that ALL modern (non-KJB) Bibles rely upon. Open up the front cover of your book.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

There are about 75 recognized translations today of the Bible into English.

www.bibletruths.net...
Did you check all those covers?
I'm looking for a reference and not finding one other than the JW version I mentioned earlier.
If you find documentation for that, post the link.

reply to post by jmdewey60


I don't think you did enough searching.

Westcott and Hort

Cont. Pt. 2

Cont. Pt. 3

ARE THE MODERN VERSIONS BASED ON WESTCOTT-HORT?


Westcott and Hort were unbelievers. I wouldn't let them teach a Sunday school class, let alone be textual critics and Greek translators of the Word of God.

reply to post by NOTurTypical
I already read all those pages, thank you and you don't need to add snide remarks to make out that I am lazy, so there!
What I wanted was a list of Bibles that only use the westcott hort to translate and do not look at other texts to supplement it. I doubt there are any and it is definitely not all because I have found a bunch that don't.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

I already read all those pages, thank you and you don't need to add snide remarks to make out that I am lazy, so there!
What I wanted was a list of Bibles that only use the westcott hort to translate and do not look at other texts to supplement it. I doubt there are any and it is definitely not all because I have found a bunch that don't.

Dude, they ALL do, only the King James Bible relies upon the Textus Receptus/Antiochian Mss. Consider this:

What's the status of Westcott & Hort's Greek New Testament today?

That text itself has been discredited. The only modern "bible" translated still directly from it is that of the Jehovah's Witness.

But the Westcott & Hort text has morphed and is re-marketed under a different name. In 1898 Eberhard Nestle, who helped translate the Westcott & Hort's Greek text into English, "updated" it and re-published it as "Nestle Greek New Testament". In 1950, Kurt Aland, who worked with Nestle, took over and it became renamed, "Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament".

The majority of the modern English Bibles, including the New International Version (NIV) and NASB, are based on this Nestle-Aland text, which despite having been "improved" 27 times to its current "27th Edition" in the last 6 decades (in comparison, TR hasn't had to be updated at all in the last 400 years) still remains in essence, Westcott & Hort's.

Do NASB and NIV admit their textual origins? The NASB seems to, by stating in its introduction: "In most instances the 26th edition of Eberhard Nestle's New Testament Greek was followed."

The peculiarity of this admission is that it is buried in the 7th paragraph at the bottom of a page and is hard to find. Contrast that to what it declares prominently at the top of its "Preface" on the preceding page: "In the history of English Bible translations, the King James Version is the most prestigious. This time-honored version of 1611, itself a revision of the Bishop's Bible of 1568, became the basis for the English Revised Version appearing in 1881 (New Testament) and 1885 (Old Testament)."

Why misrepresent your origins and pay homage to a version based on the "villainous and vile" TR? When trying to overthrow something, claiming to be its successor isn’t a bad idea.

Instead of outright misrepresentation, the NIV tries to camouflage its origins in more nebulous terms: "The Greek text used in translating the New Testament was an eclectic one. No other piece of ancient literature has such an abundance of manuscript witnesses as does the New Testament. Where existing manuscripts differ, the translators made their choice of readings according to accepted principles of New Testament textual criticism. Footnotes call attention to places where there was uncertainty about what the original text was. The best current printed texts of the Greek New Testament were used."

Naming "the best current printed text" as the source wouldn't pass for a high school paper, and this is what is cited as the source for the Bible? And this stands in sharp contrast to the paragraphs just above it, which spells out in detail the dozen or so manuscripts used for the Old Testament.

Does the NIV ever admit to its origins? It does, but you need to find and download a 1-megabyte document titled, "The NIV: The Making of A Contemporary Translation" from the website of the NIV committee and then do a word search. That document’s chapter 4 titled, "The Rationale for an Eclectic New Testament Text", states, "What Greek text was used by the translators of the NIV New Testament? It was basically that found in the United Bible Societies' and Nestle's printed Greek New Testaments, which contain the latest and best Greek text available."

Who publishes the NIV and NASB and their sibling version? It's Zondervan, owned by HarperCollins Publishers, which is owned by News Corp, which in turn is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the Catholic media mogul who is close to the Vatican.

Bibles



Also, if you're as "lazy" as you claim you'll have plenty of time to watch this series of YouTube videos from Dr. Chuck Missler. I'm not asking you to change your mind, but just take a peek at what he has to say. He will also get into the controversy of deleted verses and expurgated text that those at Alexandria propagated.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

"In most instances the 26th edition of Eberhard Nestle's New Testament Greek was followed."

In most instances there is absolutely no difference.
You know, there are resources available. I will clue you in, in case you do not know about it.
biblos.com...
Follow the link and scroll down to the middle of the page. You see the various versions of the Greek. My advice would be to learn Greek. Buy some good books from Amazon and at least a couple lexicons, a Greek Bible, some Greek grammar books, and some good Greek Vocabulary building books. I have a book list on my profile with the titles of the ones I have. Check it out, get a list together and start buying them as you can afford to.
I don't sit there and freak out over these because I read all of it and make my own judgements. My advice is everyone do the same. The New Testament was written in Greek and people will not understand it untill they read it that way. Read all the translations for every verse. Look at your Bible and you will notice how much thinner the New Testament part is. There is not that many verses and the words are a lot more familiar than the Hebrew.

Also, if you're as "lazy" as you claim. . .

No, I said you are talking like I did not look hard and you are wrong, dude.