Acts 2:22 = Jesus was a MAN approved by God

reply to post by jmdewey60

to make us feel guilty.

We don't need Jesus to make us feel guilty, we can read the 10 commandments for that painful revelation.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by sk0rpi0n

 

While there are plenty of verses that show Jesus to be a man and not divine.

Jesus was a man.

What about the other pile of verses that show Jesus doing things only God can do?

Cherry-picking is a fallacy. Christians don't deny Christ's humanity.

That's the Gnostics.

Jesus wasn't the only man to do miracles. it had been recorded thousands of years before him. adi shiva, krishna, buddha,etc even in more recent times people like ramakrishna and sai baba were said to posses super natural abilities

reply to post by biggmoneyme


Focus,..

this is about Jesus and the Bible. Red herrings are also a fallacy.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by biggmoneyme

 

Focus,..

this is about Jesus and the Bible. Red herrings are also a fallacy.

yeah well the dogmas and beliefs that make up Christianity are pure bull #

reply to post by biggmoneyme


According to whom?

Originally posted by Iason321
reply to post by biggmoneyme

 

According to whom?

According to him.

*facepalm*

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by jmdewey60

 

to make us feel guilty.

We don't need Jesus to make us feel guilty, we can read the 10 commandments for that painful revelation.

My guess would be that the writer of Acts saw the Jews as thinking they did keep the commandments, and needed some real evidence that they did something wrong, to shake them up, and then left it at that, as the purpose for Jesus. Luke, or whoever, never knew Jesus personally, and I doubt even knew the Apostles.

reply to post by jmdewey60

Luke, or whoever, never knew Jesus personally, and I doubt even knew the Apostles.

That's why Luke isn't called an apostle by anyone.

However he interviewed them for his gospel account.

Point is, the idea by Dr. Ehrman is absurd, Jesus didn't die to make us feel guilty.

reply to post by jmdewey60

Bottom line, don't trust either of those books.

I wouldn't say don't trust those books... i would just be careful what you believe is correct

much of luke falls in line with the other two synoptic texts...

Though i admit i do question the fact that luke was a follower of Paul..

The posts in this thread are a perfect example of the confusion and divisiveness caused by the omission of many of the early writings and the deliberate selectiveness of the church and later councils. In my opinion the omissions were twofold. To maintain control of a growing congregation, and because some teachings were simply not understood, and therefore too dangerous to be included in the developing doctrine.

The biggest mistake made by the Christian faith is to concentrate too fully on the life and times and heavily censored sayings of Jesus . The story of Jesus is only part of the picture, and must be taken in context with the bible as a whole. A great example of not seeing the forest for the trees.

The bible is much more than a story of God and the Jewish people, and later on the story of the life and some of the teachings of Jesus.
The bible is the full story of mankind. From the beginning through to the end.

Mankind enters the story with the allegory of Adam and Eve. This is not just the story of two particular people, but is the story of ALL humanity. Every human born to this world has fallen from a previous state of divinity to the lower state of humanity. All humans were at one time required to undergo and pass a test. This was the test and trial of the sexes. It required that a temporary separation of our essential being take place. We separated into our desire and feeling, or male and female components. The test was to continue to think of ourselves as one, and not as separate or a duality. All born into the physical world failed this test, and were thus disqualified from further advancement along ‘the eternal order of progression’.

The mission of Jesus was not to establish a church or start a new religion. His mission was to preach the gospel (good news) about our true state, about where we came from, why we are in this present condition, and most importantly what we can and must do ‘to save ourselves’, remind us of our true state of immortality and to reclaim our rightful inheritance in the eternal.

But, understand that only a portion of our true selves was required to undergo the test. Even though ‘we’ failed the test, a higher portion remains in the eternal to guide and teach us, to help us awaken from our hypnotic slumber cast upon us by nature (our physical bodies).

Our true selves, therefore is of divine and spiritual essence. We are of three parts of the one indivisible self, or a triune being. Christianity refers to the three as Father, Holy Spirit and Son. Other teachings refer to the three as The Knower (Father), The Thinker (Holy Spirit) The Doer (Son) or in the case of a human the portion undergoing a human existence. It is the Doer portion that must take and pass the test and trail of the sexes. The other two portions, the Knower and Thinker, remain forever in the eternal.

Those that have followed me thus far will understand that I am making a somewhat controversial claim. That each and every one of us has their own individual ‘Father’ in heaven in the form of their higher self, being their Knower.

Now before the flame throwers come out, I also stated that there is an Eternal Order of Progression, where ALL will eventually reconcile with their Fathers in heaven and continue onward with our spiritual progression towards the ONE SOURCE of All That Is.

This ONE SOURCE is so far beyond the Gods of religion conceived of by man to be virtually unimaginable by the mind of man.

Jesus’ death on the cross was not an act of self sacrifice to save humanity. Jesus allowed his crucifixion to prove to the world that an ordinary mortal could become immortal and conquer death. He did this by raising himself on the third day. This was a necessity because if Jesus has simply disappeared from the world , or returned to the eternal witnessed by a few close followers, the world would not believe in the truth of immortality. This is the reason the death of Jesus had to be very public.

By the way, it was quite common in first century Jerusalem to claim to be the son of God, or a son of God. Any righteous man could and did claim this without violating and laws either written or unwritten. What upset the populace was that Jesus fully understood his relationship with and to his heavenly Father, and was very forthright about the closeness of it.

The posts in this thread are a perfect example of the confusion and divisiveness caused by the omission of many of the early writings and the deliberate selectiveness of the church and later councils. In my opinion the omissions were twofold. To maintain control of a growing congregation, and because some teachings were simply not understood, and therefore too dangerous to be included in the developing doctrine.

The biggest mistake made by the Christian faith is to concentrate too fully on the life and times and heavily censored sayings of Jesus . The story of Jesus is only part of the picture, and must be taken in context with the bible as a whole. A great example of not seeing the forest for the trees.

The bible is much more than a story of God and the Jewish people, and later on the story of the life and some of the teachings of Jesus.
The bible is the full story of mankind. From the beginning through to the end.

Mankind enters the story with the allegory of Adam and Eve. This is not just the story of two particular people, but is the story of ALL humanity. Every human born to this world has fallen from a previous state of divinity to the lower state of humanity. All humans were at one time required to undergo and pass a test. This was the test and trial of the sexes. It required that a temporary separation of our essential being take place. We separated into our desire and feeling, or male and female components. The test was to continue to think of ourselves as one, and not as separate or a duality. All born into the physical world failed this test, and were thus disqualified from further advancement along ‘the eternal order of progression’.

The mission of Jesus was not to establish a church or start a new religion. His mission was to preach the gospel (good news) about our true state, about where we came from, why we are in this present condition, and most importantly what we can and must do ‘to save ourselves’, remind us of our true state of immortality and to reclaim our rightful inheritance in the eternal.

But, understand that only a portion of our true selves was required to undergo the test. Even though ‘we’ failed the test, a higher portion remains in the eternal to guide and teach us, to help us awaken from our hypnotic slumber cast upon us by nature (our physical bodies).

Our true selves, therefore is of divine and spiritual essence. We are of three parts of the one indivisible self, or a triune being. Christianity refers to the three as Father, Holy Spirit and Son. Other teachings refer to the three as The Knower (Father), The Thinker (Holy Spirit) The Doer (Son) or in the case of a human the portion undergoing a human existence. It is the Doer portion that must take and pass the test and trail of the sexes. The other two portions, the Knower and Thinker, remain forever in the eternal.

Those that have followed me thus far will understand that I am making a somewhat controversial claim. That each and every one of us has their own individual ‘Father’ in heaven in the form of their higher self, being their Knower.

Now before the flame throwers come out, I also stated that there is an Eternal Order of Progression, where ALL will eventually reconcile with their Fathers in heaven and continue onward with our spiritual progression towards the ONE SOURCE of All That Is.

This ONE SOURCE is so far beyond the Gods of religion conceived of by man to be virtually unimaginable by the mind of man.

Jesus’ death on the cross was not an act of self sacrifice to save humanity. Jesus allowed his crucifixion to prove to the world that an ordinary mortal could become immortal and conquer death. He did this by raising himself on the third day. This was a necessity because if Jesus has simply disappeared from the world , or returned to the eternal witnessed by a few close followers, the world would not believe in the truth of immortality. This is the reason the death of Jesus had to be very public.

By the way, it was quite common in first century Jerusalem to claim to be the son of God, or a son of God. Any righteous man could and did claim this without violating and laws either written or unwritten. What upset the populace was that Jesus fully understood his relationship with and to his heavenly Father, and was very forthright about the closeness of it.

Akragon:

You do realize you are using a different version/translation than GenRev. Therefore, there is a high probability that your translation will differ from his making the point he made earlier about the translations and the changing of one Greek letter could mean "Lord" or "God".

Simply put the only "evidence" that you have brought forth are assumptions based on the translation that you are using.

Also, and I quote "I do not lie..." is a lie...

For others: Please do not confuse Trinity with a Triunity

Trinity= 3 seperate but equal parts
Tri-untiy= 3 parts equal but in 1- not separate but rather 1, also not percentages of a whole either.

For Everyone:

Please do not verse call... anyone can throw a verse in an argument to make their point good or bad. Please include in context your verse. GenRev has done a good job with prefacing his verse quotes. Everyone else has not done so. Any idiot can quote out of context to make a point... it takes a scholar to make a point using context.

reply to post by APOCOLYPSE DAWN

Tri-untiy= 3 parts equal but in 1- not separate but rather 1, also not percentages of a whole either.

This is why we call him a Triune God. All 3 wrapped into one God because there is only one God, the other stuff is polytheism that comes out of the Roman Catholic Church. This is why you can call God the Father God, Jesus God or the Holy Spirit God, because when you refer to one essentially youre talking about the other kind of like titles. This is how God is called the Alpha and Omega in the old testament, but in the New Testament it's Jesus saying he is the Alpha and Omega.

Originally posted by triune
The biggest mistake made by the Christian faith is to concentrate too fully on the life and times and heavily censored sayings of Jesus . The story of Jesus is only part of the picture, and must be taken in context with the bible as a whole. A great example of not seeing the forest for the trees.

The bible is much more than a story of God and the Jewish people, and later on the story of the life and some of the teachings of Jesus.
The bible is the full story of mankind. From the beginning through to the end.

Mankind enters the story with the allegory of Adam and Eve. This is not just the story of two particular people, but is the story of ALL humanity. Every human born to this world has fallen from a previous state of divinity to the lower state of humanity. All humans were at one time required to undergo and pass a test. This was the test and trial of the sexes. It required that a temporary separation of our essential being take place. We separated into our desire and feeling, or male and female components. The test was to continue to think of ourselves as one, and not as separate or a duality. All born into the physical world failed this test, and were thus disqualified from further advancement along ‘the eternal order of progression’.

The mission of Jesus was not to establish a church or start a new religion. His mission was to preach the gospel (good news) about our true state, about where we came from, why we are in this present condition, and most importantly what we can and must do ‘to save ourselves’, remind us of our true state of immortality and to reclaim our rightful inheritance in the eternal.

But, understand that only a portion of our true selves was required to undergo the test. Even though ‘we’ failed the test, a higher portion remains in the eternal to guide and teach us, to help us awaken from our hypnotic slumber cast upon us by nature (our physical bodies).


Our true selves, therefore is of divine and spiritual essence. We are of three parts of the one indivisible self, or a triune being. Christianity refers to the three as Father, Holy Spirit and Son. Other teachings refer to the three as The Knower (Father), The Thinker (Holy Spirit) The Doer (Son) or in the case of a human the portion undergoing a human existence. It is the Doer portion that must take and pass the test and trail of the sexes. The other two portions, the Knower and Thinker, remain forever in the eternal.

Those that have followed me thus far will understand that I am making a somewhat controversial claim. That each and every one of us has their own individual ‘Father’ in heaven in the form of their higher self, being their Knower.

I appreciate you bringing your thoughts and ideas into the conversation. However, I have a few questions and concerns.

1) The bible was/is not a sole source for historical knowledge. If its purpose was as a historical book it would read much like the old testament with lists and list of genealogies that go on forever. It would also account for more than one person could study in a lifetime. The bible was written in a way that all could understand and comprehend. Also in a way that could be taught easily. Now I will admit there are versions that have been altered to suit the will of man. (i.e. why are there tons of christian denominations? there should only be one "christian")

2) Under what evidence do you have to support the claim that the "Adam and Eve story" is an Allegory?

3) Where does this test of the sexes come from? who made it? where is the evidence to support the claims that I wasn't one enough to stay in heaven? and etc...

4) According to your claim: If we are a triunity and part of us are in heaven as you claim and that part is our father... wouldn't it be safe to extrapolate that we are in fact God? Therefore we can do as we please with no consequence? And thus a perverse form of Atheism in which there is no God but ourselves... This would then lead to what is commonly taught as the deception of the "Evil One" also known as: the devil, lucifer, satan, the fallen and etc...

5) I am not bashing your claims but rather making observations. Please elaborate on your theory and provide tangible evidence that can be researched.

reply to post by lonewolf19792000


Exactly!

Its been a while since my studies and this thread has given me a bit of juice to restudy and get back on track.

Jesus was a man on earth, not a God, he could be killed, and was, he was never God Almighty, to think otherwise denies a fundamental basic of Christianity, that Christ died for our sins, I mean really died, not a pretend death, but he never existed after his death for some hours, until his father God resurrected him back to life.
This is the ransom, that saves humanity.
Belief in the trinity unknowingly denies that ransom sacrifice, through ignorance of the understanding of how the ransom really works. Any being that ceases to really exist who is really and totally dead, cannot resurrect themselves. Thus Christ is not God.

Originally posted by APOCOLYPSE DAWN

I appreciate you bringing your thoughts and ideas into the conversation. However, I have a few questions and concerns.

1) The bible was/is not a sole source for historical knowledge. If its purpose was as a historical book it would read much like the old testament with lists and list of genealogies that go on forever. It would also account for more than one person could study in a lifetime. The bible was written in a way that all could understand and comprehend. Also in a way that could be taught easily. Now I will admit there are versions that have been altered to suit the will of man. (i.e. why are there tons of christian denominations? there should only be one "christian")

2) Under what evidence do you have to support the claim that the "Adam and Eve story" is an Allegory?

3) Where does this test of the sexes come from? who made it? where is the evidence to support the claims that I wasn't one enough to stay in heaven? and etc...

4) According to your claim: If we are a triunity and part of us are in heaven as you claim and that part is our father... wouldn't it be safe to extrapolate that we are in fact God? Therefore we can do as we please with no consequence? And thus a perverse form of Atheism in which there is no God but ourselves... This would then lead to what is commonly taught as the deception of the "Evil One" also known as: the devil, lucifer, satan, the fallen and etc...

5) I am not bashing your claims but rather making observations. Please elaborate on your theory and provide tangible evidence that can be researched.

1) Yes, I agree the bible is not the only source of historical knowledge. I have been researching this subject for over 30 years and draw my knowledge and ideas from many diverse texts.

2) For a reference to the main source of this information see the hot link at the bottom of my signature.

3) As above.

4) We are all gods in waiting. Not until we are consciously reconciled with our Knower and Thinker and are Triune selves complete, i.e. no longer human and subject to death, could we be considered to be what man thinks of as God. Jesus had already acheived this state of being as evidenced by his complete mastery over nature. By the time we reach this exalted state, and indeed in order to achieve it, we must be far beyond the petty desires of man for things of the flesh, such as possessions, power, sex and all other manifestations of nature that bind us to earthly existance.

reply to post by APOCOLYPSE DAWN

"I do not lie..." is a lie...

IF you say so...

show me this lie...

Edit: know what... scratch that!

Why would i care what you think...

reply to post by Blue_Jay33


Jesus Gave His Life, It Was No Ones To Take. Jesus could have prevented Himself from being crucified since He was (and still is) God. Jesus said: "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). Jesus chose not to save Himself. He went to His crucifixion willingly to be killed like a lamb going to slaughter. He did this because, as we learn in John`s Gospel chapter 3, verse 16, He loved us: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believes on Him would not perish but have eternal life." And God still loves us today. It is not true to say "he never existed after his death for some hours" as we do not know where he was during this time, the bible does not say. When people die they do not "cease to exist" that is not biblical, the bible says people are sleeping.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

That's why Luke isn't called an apostle by anyone.

However he interviewed them for his gospel account.

Point is, the idea by Dr. Ehrman is absurd, Jesus didn't die to make us feel guilty.

I doubt you either listened to the interview or understood my two posts on this thread. Ehrman is not saying that. He is saying that is Luke's take on the significance of Jesus' death.
There is someone in the NT called Luke, who is associated with the Apostles, and I think they just pulled that name out of a hat to pin on the writer of Luke and Acts, since the two books seem as if they were written by the same person, by the prefaces to them being very similar.
Biblical criticism of the books do not suggest that they are what they are purported to be (eye witness, or even second hand accounts). Form criticism does not even see Acts as being classified as a history but as a novel.