Worldwide Persecution of Christians - End Times Prophecy

reply to post by Jordan River


My point is, against the William Lane Craig argument, that the Jews had no context to pagan myth, in which the story of Jesus could have been framed. That's simply not true.

Josephus wrote extensively on the Essenes. They weren't rebels or outcasts. Their ancient teachings mirror the teachings of Jesus.

Originally posted by windword
reply to post by Jordan River

 

My point is, against the William Lane Craig argument, that the Jews had no context to pagan myth, in which the story of Jesus could have been framed. That's simply not true.

Josephus wrote extensively on the Essenes. They weren't rebels or outcasts. Their ancient teachings mirror the teachings of Jesus.

The teacher of rightousness happened 100 yrs before christ. Essenes were pre christians and probably conformed to christians when christ met them. John baptist was probably a priest and left to be a essene.
The essenes disbanded during Christianity .

And they were disbanded jews probably grew in popularity because exiles could live there too they were the pre Christians

reply to post by Jordan River


The Essenes did NOT disband, although many were killed during the Jewish Wars, The Essenes were the first Christians, and the first Christians were called Nazareans, not Christians. Christianity was hardly a unified sect during first and even the second centuries. However, their Gnostic tendancies caused the Catholic Church to wage war on them, and they did succeed in wiping them out.

A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink, identifies five distinct Jewish Christian communities which existed in apostolic times: the Ebionites, the Elkesaites, the Nazoreans, the Cerinthians, and the Symmachians. Though there is some diversity in the beliefs of these groups, New Testament scholar James Dunn has identified three common characteristics that warrant giving the umbrella label of “Jewish Christian” to them all:
1) Faithful adherence to the Law of Moses.
2) The exaltation of James, and the denigration of Paul.
3) A christology of “adoptionism” — they all believed that Jesus was the natural born son of Joseph and Mary and “adopted” by God as his Son upon his baptism by John.

www.thebrotherofjesus.com...

The First One Hundred Years of Christianity in Jerusalem

One does not have to look far to see that many of these practices [Essene] were adopted by the early Christian community.

But i dont know what i am talking about. I've only read scholar books on the subject. And essenes ledt israel jewish religi n because they thought jews were not the real religion of god. Yeah thats not rebbelious

They weren't rich if they were we would know more about them

Wtf do i know

Essenes did not magically turn into gnostics

reply to post by windword


I know you've seen this before Win.



Seemss solid enough for me and many scholars.
I make use of the vid only for compilation convenience.
I've never seen it debunked but definitely ignored.
And yet you persist ? What's up in that Win ?

Originally posted by Jordan River
But i dont know what i am talking about. I've only read scholar books on the subject. And essenes ledt israel jewish religi n because they thought jews were not the real religion of god.

As have I.

Yeah thats not rebbelious

No more rebellious than Jesus was.

They weren't rich if they were we would know more about them

Well that wouldn't be very "Christ like" would it? But, they did okay.

These men are despisers of riches, and so very communicative as raises our admiration. Nor is there any one to be found among them who hath more than another; for it is a law among them, that those who come to them must let what they have be common to the whole order, - insomuch that among them all there is no appearance of poverty, or excess of riches, but every one's possessions are intermingled with every other's possessions; and so there is, as it were, one patrimony among all the brethren. ancienthistory.about.com...

Essenes did not magically turn into gnostics

1) Gnosticism or proto-gnosticism had its roots in Egypt;

2) The Therapeautae were the result of contact between
a Jewish or Samaritan group of priests or levites and
Egyptian proto-gnostic views;

3) The Therapeautae developed a network of communities
all around Palestine (as indicated by the latter messianic
figure called "The Egyptian"... which shows a strong interest
in Palestine by Egyptian-based communities in general);

4) At the rise of the Maccabean conflict, the "Hasidim"
(with Egyptian ties to the Therapeutae), introduced gnostic
thinking into the ranks of the Maccabee zealots;

5) The gnostic views became "militarized" into a strict
sect that modern audiences call "Essene", but which were
in fact the Jewish/Judahite wing of a pan-Hebrew movement
of Essenes (i.e., Samaritan, Galilean and Damascus communities
of Essenes were not of the "House of Judah", and hence, not
technically "Jewish"). groups.yahoo.com...

Philo distinguishes the Essenes from the Therapeuts by saying that the former were devoted to the "practical" life, while the latter proceeded to the higher stage of the "contemplative" life, and devoted themselves to still higher problems of religion and philosophy, and it is in this direction that we must look for the best in Gnosticism.
www.sacred-texts.com...

reply to post by randyvs


I'm pretty sure that we've been over this before, you and I. Everyone of the examples in that video have been debunked! And, they've been debunked in this thread!

reply to post by windword


I don't see how you can call obvious inconclusive rhetoric and some at best debateble points,
an absolute debunking ? The vids were confirmation only of bias." Most scholars do not
dispute the historicity of Christ " ? Yet you and others seem to cling to these obvious
lies. What you call debunking, i see as casting unfounded doubt on scholarly evidence.
Nothing new from the community of secular hate.

reply to post by randyvs


What particular proofs are you referring to that haven't been debunked? Certainly not the proven forgeries in the writing of Josephus, or the mistranslation of Tacticus. Are there some contemporary writing on Jesus of which haven't been covered?

All the others, that I am aware of, are 2nd or 3rd or even 4th hand stories being retold.

Personally, I'm on fence of whether or not the biblical character of Jesus existed. He very well may have. But the virgin birth, the miracles, the resurrection and the dying to sins and being God in the flesh part, I completely reject.

There's so many contradiction in the Gospels, that I can't be certain that any of it's true.

reply to post by windword

Personally, I'm on fence of whether or not the biblical character of Jesus existed. He very well may have. But the virgin birth, the miracles, the resurrection and the dying to sins and being God in the flesh part, I completely reject.

Alright Windword, at least that's a fair enough.

Maybe the will of God is like an invisible hand of influence to all that we know .
He wants us by faith more than evidence for his own reasons and is clear on that.
There are some proven effects of consciousness on wave particles aren't there ?
Without knowing exactly WTF i'm talking about.... Obviously.

reply to post by windword

Originally posted by windword
What particular proofs are you referring to that haven't been debunked? Certainly not the proven forgeries in the writing of Josephus

christianthinktank.com...
Glenn Miller

Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, c.93)

Let me also just mention something about the Josephus issue. Every now an then I get an email about someone abjectly 'dismissing' the data from Josephus, without even interacting with the data and the positions of solid scholars. This is inappropriate. By far and away, the bulk of modern scholarship accepts that Josephus makes two independent references to Jesus--to argue otherwise requires the objector to dismantle the historical consensus, and this requires argumentation instead of simple assertion (and disallowance of Josephus as a witness!). One of the leading scholars, translators, and commentators on Josephus is Steve Mason. In his book on Josephus and the New Testament (Hendrickson:1992), he discusses the two references to Jesus in Josephus' writings, and concludes that "if it were needed", they would provide independent testimony to the existence of Jesus. He writes:


"Taking all of these problems into consideration, a few scholars have argued that the entire passage (the testimonium) as it stands in Josephus is a Christian forgery. The Christian scribes who copied the Jewish historian's writings thought it intolerable that he should have said nothing about Jesus and spliced the paragraph in where it might logically have stood, in Josephus' account of Pilate's tenure. Some scholars have suggested that Eusebius himself was the forger, since he was the first to produce the passage…Most critics, however, have been reluctant to go so far. They have noted that, in general, Christian copyists were quite conservative in transmitting texts. Nowhere else in all of Josephus' voluminous writings is there strong suspicion of scribal tampering. Christian copyists also transmitted the works of Philo, who said many things that might be elaborated in a Christian direction, but there is no evidence that in hundreds of years of transmission, the scribes inserted their own remarks into Philo's text. To be sure, many of the "pseudepigrapha" that exist now only in Christian form are thought to stem from Jewish originals, but in this instance it may reflect the thorough Christian rewriting of Jewish models, rather than scribal insertions. That discussion is ongoing among scholars. But in the cases of Philo and Josephus, whose writings are preserved in their original language and form, one is hard pressed to find a single example of serious scribal alteration. To have created the testimonium out of whole cloth would be an act of unparalleled scribal audacity." (p.170-171)


"Finally, the existence of alternative versions of the testimonium has encouraged many scholars to think that Josephus must have written something close to what we find in them, which was later edited by Christian hands. if the laudatory version in Eusebius and our text of Josephus were the free creation of Christian scribes, who then created the more restrained versions found in Jerome, Agapius, and Michael? The version of Agapius is especially noteworthy because it eliminates, though perhaps too neatly, all of the major difficulties in the standard text of Josephus. (a) It is not reluctant to call Jesus a man. (b) It contains no reference to Jesus' miracles. (c) It has Pilate execute Jesus at his own discretion. (d) It presents Jesus' appearance after death as merely reported by the disciples, not as fact. (e) It has Josephus wonder about Jesus' messiahship, without explicit affirmation. And (f) it claims only that the prophets spoke about "the Messiah," whoever he might be, not that they spoke about Jesus. That shift also explains sufficiently the otherwise puzzling term "Messiah" for Josephus' readers. In short, Agapius' version of the testimonium sounds like something that a Jewish observer of the late first century could have written about Jesus and his followers." (p.172)

"It would be unwise, therefore, to lean heavily on Josephus' statements about Jesus' healing and teaching activity, or the circumstances of his trial. Nevertheless, since most of those who know the evidence agree that he said something about Jesus, one is probably entitled to cite him as independent evidence that Jesus actually lived, if such evidence were needed. But that much is already given in Josephus' reference to James (Ant. 20.200) and most historians agree that Jesus' existence is the only adequate explanation of the many independent traditions among the NT writings." (p.174f)

reply to post by texastig


Sigh.

Why do Christians lie and create evidence to try to prove their religion to be true? As early as Jerome and Eusebius, we find Christians tampering and interpolating writings to promote a pet theory of some kind or another or to kill one.

When the evidence is scientifically examined, it becomes clear that the entire Josephus passage regarding Jesus was forged, likely by Church historian Eusebius, during the fourth century. In "Who on Earth was Jesus Christ?" David Taylor details the reasons why the TF in toto must be deemed a forgery, most of which arguments, again, were put forth by Dr. Lardner:

"It was not quoted or referred to by any Christian apologists prior to Eusebius, c. 316 ad.
"Nowhere else in his voluminous works does Josephus use the word 'Christ,' except in the passage which refers to James 'the brother of Jesus who was called Christ' (Antiquities of the Jews, Book 20, Chapter 9, Paragraph 1), which is also considered to be a forgery.
"Since Josephus was not a Christian but an orthodox Jew, it is impossible that he should have believed or written that Jesus was the Christ or used the words 'if it be lawful to call him a man,' which imply the Christian belief in Jesus' divinity.
"The extraordinary character of the things related in the passage--of a man who is apparently more than a man, and who rose from the grave after being dead for three days--demanded a more extensive treatment by Josephus, which would undoubtedly have been forthcoming if he had been its author.
"The passage interrupts the narrative, which would flow more naturally if the passage were left out entirely.
"It is not quoted by Chrysostom (c. 354-407 ad) even though he often refers to Josephus in his voluminous writings.
"It is not quoted by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople (c. 858-886 ad) even though he wrote three articles concerning Josephus, which strongly implies that his copy of Josephus' Antiquities did not contain the passage.
"Neither Justin Martyr (110-165 AD), nor Clement of Alexandria (153-217 ad), nor Origen (c.185-254 AD), who all made extensive reference to ancient authors in their defence of Christianity, has mentioned this supposed testimony of Josephus.
"Origen, in his treatise Against Celsus, Book 1, Chapter 47, states categorically that Josephus did NOT believe that Jesus was the Christ.
"This is the only reference to the Christians in the works of Josephus. If it were genuine, we would have expected him to have given us a fuller account of them somewhere."

The Catholic Encyclopedia (CE), which tries to hedge its bet about the Josephus passage, is nevertheless forced to admit: "The passage seems to suffer from repeated interpolations." In the same entry, CE also confirms that Josephus's writings were used extensively by the early Christian fathers, such as Jerome, Ambrose and Chrystostom; nevertheless, as noted, except for Jerome, they never mention the TF.

Regarding the TF, as well as the James passage, which possesses the phrase James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, Jewish writer ben Yehoshua makes some interesting assertions:

"Neither of these passages is found in the original version of the Jewish Antiquities which was preserved by the Jews. The first passage (XVII, 3, 3) was quoted by Eusebius writing in c. 320 C.E., so we can conclude that it was added in some time between the time Christians got hold of the Jewish Antiquities and c. 320 C.E. It is not known when the other passage (XX, 9, 1) was added... Neither passage is based on any reliable sources. It is fraudulent to claim that these passages were written by Josephus and that they provide evidence for Jesus. They were written by Christian redactors and were based purely on Christian belief."

www.truthbeknown.com...

reply to post by windword


You have to wonder, why would Eusebius even need to interpolate Jesus into Josephus' work? If a man named Jesus who was called Christ actually existed, there would be no reason to add his name to existing works.

The only reason I can think of is that a man named Jesus who worked miracles and rose from the dead never existed, and they added his name to give this fictional character some kind of basis in history. There's no other logical reason.

reply to post by windword


So your saying that one of the leading scholars, translators, and commentators on Josephus, Professor Steve Mason is wrong?

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1


I disagree. I think that Eusebius was blind sided by critics of Christianity who made the claim that Jesus may have not existed in the flesh. There were a lot of Christian sects at that time that taught that Jesus (Christ) appeared on earth as an apparition, in spirit only. Out of desperation to quelch heresy, he may have interpolated Josephus' writings.

reply to post by windword


But if he really didn't appear in the flesh... I doubt Eusebius could have known whether Jesus was real or not over 200 years after the fact, he was basing everything he wrote about Jesus on hearsay.

I'm beginning to think more and more that Jesus may really just have been an amalgamation of a religious sect into one person, possibly the Essenes. They just attributed various teachings of theirs to one person and gave this fictional person a name.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it wouldn't be the first time.

Reply to toktaylor

 

You forgot the most important part (based on the bible)...THEY CAN TALK!!

“You are right and here it goes!”

The Temptation

By the EstimatedProphet

Genesis 3_Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

In the "beginning" the Holy Bible mentions something about the serpents being the most cunning creatures that the Lord had created…What is being described here is that these serpents where the most sophisticated creatures in the animal kingdom, second too humanity!

These serpents also stood-up or walked about on their legs…It is obvious that this serpent was a “dinosaur” before being cursed and loosing its identity and/or natural characteristics of a supreme animal...And almost all reptiles either crawl or drag their bodies on the floor while licking the dust with their tongues!

Now the most startling fact in scripture was that these creatures talked and they are recorded in the bible as verbally reasoning and/or interacting with the human being…Why or how was this possible, unless the creature itself must have ate some of that forbidden fruit that would open its mind to understanding and the scheme of things in-order to “reason!”

Or it may be possible that it may have been possessed by an alien being, such as another ghost/spirit and/or entity that acted-out as a host in the body of that creature to deceive humanity!

If this where the case, then the bible also mentions something about the “Sons of God” disobeying the Lord’s command and rebelling against Him for their own personal interests, such as; envy, pride and evil and wicked “intents” (purposses) and for themselves to become “God like” by supposedly becoming rulers of humanity and enslaving humans for making them their subjects and teaching them things that humanity was suppose to learn and strive for on their own.

Now there is another record of this fact in the Book of Enoch. Here is a quote regarding of what happened in those days: “Thou seest what Azâzêl hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were (preserved) in heaven, which men were striving to learn!”

You will probably be surprised to learn and/or know that allot of the modern technology that we use today where also created and used during those days long ago, thanks to these individuals for F*king-it all up for us!

And since I hold no memory to those accounts I could only suppose that it was probably Azâzêl who either possessed that serpent creature and/or was the serpent himself, but I think “possession” is more of a probable cause because that serpent knew way too much information that was not based on the natural intellect and/or knowledge of that animal or creature.

Now we are going back to bible studies: On Genesis 3:14_ So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.

15_And I will put enmity (Strife) between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

So what the bible is talking about is somewhat true because snakes (serpents) are antisocial creatures…In other words, snakes are not very social animals, yes they will court and interact for mating purposes with other individuals present, then afterwards they will split-up and go their separate ways.

Mother serpents abandon their babies and/or offspring’s most of the time and male and female snakes do not get along so well, accept only when it comes to mating. Although it is rare to see a group of snakes together, they are very hostile (unfriendly) towards one-another…Therefore, most often times these snakes/serpents live a solitary life!

So what is meant in scripture when it says; “You will eat the dust,” is true because the serpent licks the dust from off the ground, “with its tongue” when it scavenges or searches for prey, (hunting for food!)

And the meaning in this verse about; “He will crush your head and you will strike his heel,” could mean one of two things, since the bible is more or less expressed vaguely (uncertainty) depending on the knowledge of the person and/or how well they perceive its meaning in-order to finding-out the truth.

Note: The bible is filled with hidden mystery and riddles that are also known as “Parables” and “Proverbs” and there is also allot of symbolism and figurative speech in its words to hide some of its meaning and/or prophetic accounts of future events, etcetera!

Now back to the meaning about, “crushing heads and striking heels.”
The first probable meaning could be addressed to the male and female serpents, since they where cursed with being hostile towards each-other. But I am not satisfied with this meaning, although its interpretation is followed by the other verse, thus making the reader think that the Lord is still addressing the serpents, in-fact He is NOT!

Here is the second and true meaning of this endeavor: This is referring to man against the serpent creature and/or vise-versa, (contrary/opposite.) In the beginning of verse 15 in chapter 3, the bible has left something out very important about the strife between the serpent(s) and humanity.

What many amateur people or “nonprofessionals” would do or react when handling a snake/serpent, in-such an encounter between the two, the person would probably "through his natural instinct" strike the serpents head with an object for defense…And the snake in the same purpose for defense and through its natural instinct would probably strike (Biting) the persons heal, either from the waist down against the person who is in close contact with the snake!

“Does this make a-little since to you?”

If not, see Darwin, maybe he can give you the truth and shine some light on the creation, that is if he can speak, since he's been dead, he can tell you what happens after death. Who knows, maybe he revolved or reincarnated himself back into the world as a serpent?

Darwanianism is a set of theories to throw people off from the truth. Basically it is a systematically organized set of Bull=$h!t, that the very own people who make this crap up, don’t even believe in it because it was created for ignorant people.

Some theories say that humanity came from fish or tadpoles while others claim we came from monkey’s, it doesn’t make since and it is very controversial and it also contradicts itself over and over again as to the existence of life itself, and any idiot can point at a group of animals and say, “hey, those are my family!”

Something like this can probably get you locked-up inside a psych-ward and/or an insane-asylum for thinking such stupidity as mistakenly comparing other creatures to your own being. And the other truth is, that these people just hate their own creator and ignorantly say that he is a figment of retarded peoples imaginations, while at the same time they are comparing themselves to a total different race or species of animals which in no way equal and/or compared to humanity.

And at the end, even after these people physically die and pass-on to the hereafter, this is the awakening and/or unveiling when “all truth is revealed.” Therefore, those people who ignorantly believed in the deception will pay for believing in such imaginations that where not true and even so for rejecting the “One” who created them!

“I believe that I have achieved wisdom greater than that of Solomon’s, yet because of this understanding of such truth, I am oppressed, hated and rejected, like an outcast, thus, I am a rebel with a cause!” – Gerard~ Garcia

And to the other individuals who are arguing about mixing religious theories and occultists views, please, you need to stop because its F*king stupid!

In no way can you mix the “true spiritual faith” with religion, thee occult, pagan believes, Gnosticism, Freemasonry, mythological believes, etcetera, because they all clash against each-other and also in none of these cults is the true faith found, accept for human believes of ignorance and imagination of human consciousness!

“In other words, humans deceive themselves with false imaginary crap from-off of their own interpretations of things that are meaningless and that are not true!”

"The truth is that the Lord is the Father of Evolution because he created all of it and His Son is Heir to that inheritance!!!"

Not Billions of years, just a few years, like almost 7,000. Those bastards like to exaggerate things to confuse the people, thus creating ignorance and making it complete within the hearts of man!

edit on 31-8-2013 by estimatedprophet because: "Because I am The One to Let them Know that He is Coming Soon!"