The thread that will never get a real answer

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by jmdewey60

 

I have to reject the idea that there is yet no kingdom

His kingdom is in heaven. Jesus Himself said His kingdom was not of this world. We are awaiting Him and the arrival of His kingdom on Earth. Where He will rule and reign for 1,000 years.

So this is on Earth, this Millennial Kingdom?
I thought there was a rapture according to your end time scheme.
According to Revelation 20:4, those who "had refused to receive his mark" were to have come "to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years". So this would seem to indicate that this happens after the tribulation, and these were people not raptured, so they must have become Christians after the rapture, then got killed for being Christians, then some time after the tribulation ends there is a special resurrection just for those people, then the Millennium begins, right?

Originally posted by jmdewey60

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by jmdewey60

 

I have to reject the idea that there is yet no kingdom

His kingdom is in heaven. Jesus Himself said His kingdom was not of this world. We are awaiting Him and the arrival of His kingdom on Earth. Where He will rule and reign for 1,000 years.

So this is on Earth, this Millennial Kingdom?

Yes, His kingdom will destroy all the human governments and His kingdom will consume the entire planet. Don't you remember Daniel's vision of the metal statue? Gabriel promised Mary that her Son Jesus would rule from David's throne. When Gabriel made that prophetic statement David's throne was non-existent.

I thought there was a rapture according to your end time scheme.

Yes there is.

According to Revelation 20:4, those who "had refused to receive his mark" were to have come "to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years". So this would seem to indicate that this happens after the tribulation, and these were people not raptured, so they must have become Christians after the rapture, then got killed for being Christians, then some time after the tribulation ends there is a special resurrection just for those people, then the Millennium begins, right?

That's a lot of fluff. There is a rapture, before the tribulation, but not all Christians will be going home in the rapture. It's a blessing for the overcomer, not salvation. Some churches were promised explicitly they would be spared from the Tribulation, then other churches are told specifically that they will be sent through the Tribulation. I don't know what you mean by "special" resurrection, the Christians who are resurrected immediately prior to the 1,000 year reign are still part of the first resurrection.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

That's a lot of fluff.

So actually quoting the Bible is "fluff" while the real meat is what you made up?

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

That's a lot of fluff.

So actually quoting the Bible is "fluff" while the real meat is what you made up?

You didn't quote the Bible JM.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

You are lying, as usual which is what all your posts are about, promoting your cult.
I did quote, Revelation 20:4, just look at my post.

Anyone who knows anything about the Bible can compare my post, with your post and see I was talking about the Bible, while you were talking about a fantasy novel.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

You are lying, as usual which is what all your posts are about, promoting your cult.
I did quote, Revelation 20:4, just look at my post.

Anyone who knows anything about the Bible can compare my post, with your post and see I was talking about the Bible, while you were talking about a fantasy novel.

You're one of the biggest forum liars on ATS, please excuse me when I laugh uncontrolably reading you calling someone a "liar".

Anyways, you put "Revelation 20:4" in your post, but you didn't quote a single verse, which is exactly what I said. You claimed you "quoted" the Bible, you didn't quote the Bible, you put up a verse chapter and number.

You can't claim to have quoted the Bible when you didn't have a single Biblical verse in your post. Watch, I'll demonstrate:

Romans 10:9

See!!! I just quoted the Bible!!!!

This is "quoting the Bible":


"But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world? For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?"

Romans 3:5-7

Originally posted by NOTurTypical

Originally posted by Prezbo369

Originally posted by NOTurTypical



From His own mouth.........

You mean from mouth of whoever it was that wrote the gospel of john, 100 years after the Jesus character supposedly died.........

No, the gospel of John isn't a Gnostic text. It was written before 70 AD.

..............well that's debatable, but regardless its not contemporary and it certainly was not "from his own mouth", it wasn't even from johns mouth. Nobody has a clue whos mouth spewed those passages......

reply to post by Prezbo369


No, Biblical NT texts can be dated by what they do NOT mention. They make no mention whatsoever of the fall and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, which means they were written prior to this date. And I suppose you're right, there is no "proof" any of that was said. Same for any famous quotes throughout history, we can't believe any of them either. After all, neither you or I were there when the statements were made.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
After all, neither you or I were there when the statements were made.

Well if that may well be how you determine what is true and what isn't, but thankfully others can use evidence and reason to determine the truth of such matters.

And the evidence in this case points towards an unknown author, around between 50-100 years after the alleged events took place.

reply to post by Prezbo369


You've not presented any evidence. You've not made an argument, only asserted it to be true arbitrarily. Is that using and articulating "reason" where you're from? I have presented evidence. Or in this case, lack thereof. There is no evidence any NT book other than Revelation was written after 70 AD. None make mention of the seige and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

reply to post by Prezbo369

And the evidence in this case points towards an unknown author, around between 50-100 years after the alleged events took place.

See my thread on The Fourth Gospel, and the book which I was discussing by the then foremost expert on the Samaritans, who happened to also be an expert on the different rabbinical writings, where he says there is evidence within the Fourth Gospel that it was written to counter Rabbi Akiba, who was a supporter of the Bar Kokhba revolt 132–136 CE.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
You've not presented any evidence. You've not made an argument, only asserted it to be true arbitrarily.

Sigh.......

The gospel identifies its author as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." The text does not actually name this disciple, but by the beginning of the 2nd century a tradition began to form which identified him with John the Apostle, one of the Twelve (Jesus's innermost circle).Today the majority of scholars do not believe that John or any other eyewitness wrote it, and trace it instead to a "Johannine community" which traced its traditions to John; the gospel itself shows signs of having been composed in three "layers", reaching its final form about 90-100 AD.

Found here...

So like I said...........it wasn't from your gods own mouth.......or johns

reply to post by Prezbo369


There ya go, that's moving in the right direction toward a reasoned response! Now, to comment:

First of all, you must realize WHY certain folks hate the Gospel of John. It's because of the first paragraph. John declares that Jesus is the Word made flesh, that He is God. Much like the reason critics hate 2 Peter with a passion is because Peter affirm's Paul's apostolic ministry, and Peter declares all of Paul's epistles as true doctrine even though it's hard to understand, and Peter puts his letter on par with the other "scriptures" of the OT.

Did you bother reading the rest of the paragraph you posted?

Conservative scholars consider internal evidences, such as the lack of the mention of the destruction of the Temple and a number of passages that they consider characteristic of an eyewitness, sufficient evidence that the gospel was composed before 100 and perhaps as early as 50–70: in the 1970s, scholars Leon Morris and John A.T. Robinson independently suggested earlier dates for the gospel's composition.

So you have no consensus whatsoever among scholars. You might have a majority of textual critics who reject the accepted date for the writing of John, but I don't put a lot of weight in their opinions because their livelihoods depend on challenging the historical positions of the texts. Or basically, that's exactly what they are PAID to do, challenge the historical dates and texts we have of the Bible. Bart Ehrman is one of these guys. He'd be a penniless beggar if he didn't challenge the historical record.

There is a HUGE shortcut for determining what is inspired text and what is not. A simple, perfect method of determining which texts are the "Word of God" and which are not. This shortcut will save hundreds of hours of research and trouble reading numerous opinions of a mix-mash of textual critics. Would you like to know what this shortcut is?

reply to post by NOTurTypical

You might have a majority of textual critics who reject the accepted date for the writing of John, but I don't put a lot of weight in their opinions because their livelihoods depend on challenging the historical positions of the texts.

You present yourself as having opinions but I have yet to see any evidence that you arrived at these opinions yourself, meaning that you consistently demonstrate a profound ignorance of what you are talking about. You seem to just listen to your cult leader on YouTube videos and parrot whatever he says.
The criticism involving the supposed authorship of the Fourth Gospel is based on there not being any evidence that John wrote it, or that anyone ever saying John did, knew John, or where the book came from, so it is straight historical investigation and the form criticism just shows that it was compiled from more than one source.
The witness to things like the terminology for different people and things in John point to a date after the destruction of the temple and no one can hardly criticize details in the story because no one has that good of a detailed account to compare it to. For example there is no way to identify any of the characters involved and it shows some confusion about who exactly these people are and how they are related to each other.
It should be clear that the writer of the Fourth Gospel had themes he wanted to develop and used a made up historical context in order to develop these concepts he was trying to get across. That does not mean the concepts are wrong but that it was not ever supposed to be a straight historical account.

reply to post by jmdewey60

The criticism involving the supposed authorship of the Fourth Gospel is based on there not being any evidence that John wrote it, or that anyone ever saying John did, knew John, or where the book came from, so it is straight historical investigation and the form criticism just shows that it was compiled from more than one source.

That's a complete fabrication. One of the strongest attestations to John being the author is the affirmation of Poycarp, John's direct disciple.

Attestation of Johannine authorship is found as early as Irenaeus. Eusebius reports that Irenaeus received his information from Polycarp, who in turn received it from the apostles directly. Although Irenaeus’ testimony has been assailed on critical grounds (since he received the information as a child, and may have been mistaken as to which John wrote the gospel), since all patristic writers after Irenaeus do not question apostolic authorship, criticism must give way to historical probability. The list of fathers include Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, etc. Further, the Muratorian Canon suggests that John was given the commission to write this gospel after Andrew received a vision indicating that he would do so. If one were to sift out the possible accretions in this statement, the bare fact of Johannine authorship is not disturbed. Finally, the anti-Marcionite Prologue also affirms Johannine authorship.

Bible.org


Again, I don't put much weight in the findings of people who's livelihoods depend on challenging the historical record of these books/texts. That's a serious conflict of interest.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

Again, I don't put much weight in the findings of people who's livelihoods depend on challenging the historical record of these books/texts. That's a serious conflict of interest.

This is the identical claim as you made in another thread but failed to give a single example when I asked you for one as evidence that this is not* just something you completely made up to substitute for an actual argument.

One of the strongest attestations to John being the author is the affirmation of Poycarp, John's direct disciple.

This is something which you can believe only if you just take this at face value and being told to you by someone from whom you just accept it from without actually checking any of the supposed sources.
Maybe you would like to walk us through the chain of custody and give the quotations, to back this up, or you expect us to accept you as an authority though you show no indication of ever having read a single book on the subject.

*edit to add the "not" where I left that out earlier.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by Prezbo369

 

And the evidence in this case points towards an unknown author, around between 50-100 years after the alleged events took place.

See my thread on The Fourth Gospel, and the book which I was discussing by the then foremost expert on the Samaritans, who happened to also be an expert on the different rabbinical writings, where he says there is evidence within the Fourth Gospel that it was written to counter Rabbi Akiba, who was a supporter of the Bar Kokhba revolt 132–136 CE.

edit on 16-12-2011 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

Years ago, I heard Reginald Fuller give a talk in which he mentioned a fragment containing a portion of John's Gospel had been found (in the 1980's?) in the sands near Alexandria which dated to c. 125-- giving credence to a the traditional theory of the original being dated to about 95. That shook up my world a bit.

I wish I could give you the fragment number, but a quick search has produced nothing.

Found it:

Fragment P52

reply to post by Frira

There is a spot which was a dump in ancient times, there, and archaeologists have recovered old papyrus fragments that were remains of damaged books people had thrown away. I would have to believe there is an older traditional writing John is based on that was in circulation in the past and was probably replaced in common use by John which would have been more complete.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by NOTurTypical

 

Again, I don't put much weight in the findings of people who's livelihoods depend on challenging the historical record of these books/texts. That's a serious conflict of interest.

This is the identical claim as you made in another thread but failed to give a single example when I asked you for one as evidence that this is just something you completely made up to substitute for an actual argument.

Well... I can support that a bit. Some great minds worked on the project called The Jesus Seminar. I studied under one of their members, and enjoyed his knowledge and intellect although we disagreed on much.

With his assistance, I used their well documented raw data, and ran a statistical analysis against it. Their own data supported a conclusion that of the 150 members, about two thirds (I don't recall the exact number) BEGAN the project with the believe that the historical Jesus existed but did not actually say a single thing attributed to Him in the Gospels.

I submitted that the data could be reasonably interpreted to be skewed by approximately 15% against any validity even BEFORE the study began-- and THAT suggested a strong bias in member selection. That is 65% might have been expected to have been 50%.

In other words, the conclusion had been drawn before the project began-- and the conclusion to support by these very bright scholars was to deny ANY credence in the quotes of Christ Jesus in the four Gospels-- that is-- they did not believe and would not be swayed no matter the scholarship.

So, in as much as NOTurTypical claims a bias among some scholars-- I have seen it, and objective data suggests the "rock-the-boat" scholarship is profitable and name-making to some scholars who are drawn to such work for no other reason.

My analysis, by the way, was presented to the Seminar. In general, those who commented agreed that the bias suggested by the statistical analysis probably accurately explained their voting-- but that the method, bias and all, was central to its existence.

Of interest, if the numbers were skewed by 13%-- then statistically adjusting for that left the vast majority of their published finding to contradict the actual unbiased scholarship.

One of the strongest attestations to John being the author is the affirmation of Poycarp, John's direct disciple.

This is something which you can believe only if you just take this at face value and being told to you by someone from whom you just accept it from without actually checking any of the supposed sources.
Maybe you would like to walk us through the chain of custody and give the quotations, to back this up, or you expect us to accept you as an authority though you show no indication of ever having read a single book on the subject.

I would be interested as well. Off the top of head, I do not recall The Martyrdom of Polycarp making mention of John's Gospel, implicitly or explicitly. I have a copy around here, somewhere, and would love to be corrected-- but right now, re-reading it is not on my to-do list.