In the bible does it really say that the world will come to an end?, page 2

Originally posted by marg6043
Well defcon 5 you could have done all those post in one.

I am sorry if I bothered you, and apologize. At the time IloveHaters and myself where jousting back and fourth on the topic over the period of about a half an hour. It would have been tough to consolidate that together since I did not know what he was going to bring up next.

Originally posted by marg6043
In my views the church views of how the end of days should be is very strong in revelations.

Over a third of the Bible deals with prophecy, at least half of that third end time�s prophecy, where do you get that all this prophecy comes from Revelations?

Originally posted by spidergooch
2d Peter 3:10-12 "the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat: both the earth and the works that are in will be burned up"

Again, not purged and reformed, as was done with the flood, but melted away, so a new earth and heaven will be created.

Spider, thank you for the verse I asked for and the U2U.
So just out of curiosity, doesn�t the event in your quote above sound like an impact from an astral body to you? God has possibly used such events to bring life here on the earth to a stop before, why not again. Then the new Earth does not literally mean that he smashes to core of the earth to smithereens, but rather destroys what is here, and creates his new Earth right over the ruins of the Old. Here take a look at the verse in question right out of Revelations:

Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

The first thing that hits me in this verse, is that if there is no more earth, what is the sense in adding the point that there�s, �no more sea�. Now take a look at the next verse:

Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

How can the New Jerusalem be coming down from heaven, if the heaven has passed away. I realize that there are mentions of the seven levels of heaven in the Bible, and so on, but it also says that it is coming down, if there is no earth what is it coming down to.

I guess that the point that I am making is that the planet itself will be utterly decimated, no life will exist on it, but the planet itself will still be here, most likely, �without form and void�. Sound familiar?

I was raised to be about as conservative and fundamental as the next Christian, but in all the reading I have done, both Biblical, non-canonical and historic, not to even mention the vast archeological evidence, I have come to the opinion that while the earth was created in its present form in six days, there had to have been something here previous that was destroyed. There are numerous ancient civilizations that believe that the world had been populated and destroyed every 9000 to 11000 years or so. I cannot find it currently, but I once read somewhere that this was part of what the Egyptians believed, and hence we have the story of Atlantis through Plato. The Mayans believed similarly that there are ages to the earth, and the earth goes through changes with each age. Their next big one, and the last is I believe on the much debated date of December 21,2012.

I guess if anyone can have a claim to know which books should be in the Bible, let us consider the following.

1. The Old Testament, translated by the Jewish High council in Alexandria at the bequest of Alexander, was the same Old Testament cannon in use today. It was considered finished at that time.

2. The assembly of the New Testament cannon was complete by the 2d century, by the church fathers. It is interesting to note that the universal church added a few books later on.

3. There are some today that feel they can add books or take away words from the Bible because of their "excellent" scholarship. I find this to be profoundly arrogant, since somehow they have ascribed to themselves a superior wisdom than those men and women who were many who knew those who walked with Christ himself.

On this topic, you must consider that much of the Bible came from the Hebrew Torah, and some of these books where removed from this for what I consider questionable reasons. Prior to Mosaic Law being the primary Law of the Jews, Enochain Law also existed. Many of the books that are now considered Psudopigraphal, where once accepted Hebrew books. In my personal opinion some of them are not only quite good, but have added considerably to my understanding of the Bible itself. Now I am not going to say they all should be read and added to the Bible, but there are some that where obviously studied by the writers of the Bible and are quoted verbatim in the existing Bible. One of the best things about the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls was not only that they showed the consistency of the books throughout the years, but also that Qumran held books of both types, Enochain and Mosaic. Let me give you an example:

Enoch 1:9
And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment upon all, And to destroy all the ungodly: And to convict all flesh of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.

Jud 1:14
And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, Jud 1:15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

This book was not only banned from the Hebrew scriptures, but one rabbi actually went so far as to pronounce a curse on anyone who reads it. It was later discarded at one of the Christian counsels from entering our cannon over this:

Gen 6:1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, Gen 6:2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. Gen 6:3 And the LORD said, my spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years. Gen 6:4 there were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Gen 6:6 and it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. Gen 6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

An argument over whether or not an Angle can assume human form and mate with a human to produce offspring. Now before anyone brings up the stuff about this meaning the Sons of Seth and the Daughters of Cain, you better go and read Enoch first and see EXACTLY who the Sons of God refers to, or better yet read it from flavius josephus in his �Antiquities of the Jews�.

For many angels of God accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength; for the tradition is, that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants.

There are many, many more things that for some reason have been edited or left out of the Bible for some reason or another that seem to me to further clarify things, by various Counsels. Now that is not to say that I have any problem with the Inspiration of the writing of the scripture; I do question who chose what got put in and what got left out, and their reasoning/motivation. It seems like a lot of the heat that Christians take from skeptics could easily have been avoided by adding these clarifications into the finished Bible, but maybe it would take away from the idea of Faith. As far as skeptics go, I used to be one at one point, but then I decided to find out for myself, and found that there is much support for what is in the Bible. So now when someone challenges the validity of the Bible with me I just figure they�re not well enough read.