The big bad Bible

reply to post by windword
There are a lot of poor people that get saved .Homeless people .people that are not in a very good spot to help others but need help themselves .Salvation is a separate issue from works .

reply to post by windword


Yea a person living righteously is certainly not going to be without the fruits of good works toward others. As opposed to a person that doesn't (fitb) but will not push his brothers ass out of the ditch.....good Samaritan.

Speaking of that the good Samaritan story told by Jesus is actually a paraphrase if you will of specific old testament law. Some think its about being a good man of compassion and brotherhood and it is. Most dont know this behavior was required under the law. When Jesus told the law thumpers that the Samaritan was more righteous he was actually accusing them of indeed not following the law while making great pretense to doing so not to mention beating you up, taking your money and tossing you into a ditch.

reply to post by the2ofusr1


You know theres a lot of fear preached about sins we should not commit.


But remember Lazarus and the rich man. People hate that story but its about much more than the rich man poor man thing. its about the requirements, yes I said requirements, under the law about how they were to treat fellow citizens. They were not supposed to step over them on their way out.

Man that's a hard section for this world that measures itself and self worth by the laws of mammon.

Good to see some have been touched of grace, praise The Lord . Since I have been supplicated , this for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see; what did chance bring to creation? The will to live? Just who or what chance happenstance did the will to live become breathed into all things? Some would see the master they serve by looking at their own desires,what gives them the will to go on ... some would realize themselves held captive and seek escape but know they are serving life without parole . When we realize the will of man has been distorted we start to seek out the true will of God and seek after the things conducive of that true will--- TO LIVE and to live together . It is not what we do that matters it's our reasons, for all action is propelled by reason! By what reason is truth held away from babes? The powers that be can try to lie but the children see and hear; those caught repeating truth are punished? God never punishes truth , though may test it. And God never hides the truth though he may be hidden.

If you doubt the bible you read , look to the self evident truths and reoccurring themes of our existence , if done honestly, the truth of God as we are able to in this twisted form , be glimmered at through a torn veil, eventually it will be of no obstacle .

Tucket
"you are saved by faith alone," and that my best and worst deeds mean absolutely nothing to God, or that I'm worse than I know, but am washed clean by the blood of Jesus. These concepts confused me. I recall questioning my youth pastor about bible content, and after awhile he said it was just something I had to "wrestle with." This, of course, confused me even more. One might think that God would channel down manuscripts that were clear and concise.

In Mr 4:9, Mr 4:23 and Mr 7.16 alone we have "If any man have ears to hear, let him hear."
So if you want to be saved, simply open your soul to the Spirit of our Lord through the Blood of Jesus Christ who died on the cross for us sinners.

Once your heart opens to the Messiah of Heaven, you won't need 'clear and concise manuscripts'.

Imagine yourself standing before our Lord YHWH on Judgement Day, alone. Your 'dead' good deeds will not allow you to enter Heaven.

However, with your ultimate lawyer Jesus Christ standing next to you, who died for your spirit to be saved from eternal damnation, will guarantee that your name will be written back into the Book of Life.

The King James Bible came out about 60 years after Luther's death, so he had no part in its construction. In addition, it was a translation, not an original work. How do we know that? Because we have the original texts that it was translated from -- in Greek and Latin, because no one (well, no one with a brain, anyway,) translates from English to English, so the source was not Tyndale's Bible from 1525.

Thanks for the reply. William Tyndale's translation of the bible came out many years after his death. Does that mean he had no part in its construction? During my "ten minutes of research" (Wikipedia is great), I read that as much as 83% of the kjb was written by Tyndale, under the guidance of Luther. does that mean he had no part in its construction?
I wont argue further. You are obviously much more learned and convinced of the official historical facts.
You question nothing; eat what's fed to you. But because religion is a great tool for instigating wars and controlling the masses,I question everything about it.

Sorry bout the confusion with the quotes..

Tucket
I wont argue further. You are obviously much more learned and convinced of the official historical facts.
You question nothing; eat what's fed to you. But because religion is a great tool for instigating wars and controlling the masses,I question everything about it.

Yes, I generally trust history, because I was trained as an historian at university, so I know how to validate historical claims.

More than that, though, I am a rational thinker. I put it to you again, if Luther (as well as Zwingli, Calvin and other reformers) were opposed to the Roman Catholic church, and that opposition was, in their view, based in scripture, don't you find it incredibly odd that Protestants and Catholics have the same New Testament, and largely the same Old Testament? If Luther re-wrote the Bible, as you claim, to support his anti-Catholic theology, why is the Roman Catholic Bible pretty much the same text?

You're new to ATS, welcome. We appreciate provocative thinking, but even more than that, we appreciate rational thinking.

Hey thanks, glad to be here among rational thinkers. I did not say or mean to suggest that Luther re wrote the bible. I am suggesting maybe his theology of "saved by grace alone," was subtly infused in certain places of the existing texts. I suggest this because Luther's influence on modern Christianity is substantial. As for the rest of your info about protestants and Catholics, I can't reply. I know Luther was initially a bishop in the Catholic church, and that Calvin was a disciple. That's about it. You have motivated me to do another "ten minutes" of research.

reply to post by randyvs

No one can serve two masters.

My apologies if this sounds like an ignorant question, but I'd thought we left the whole servant and master relationship behind after the Civil War and our break from England. Who says we have to have a master? Why can't we be independent? That whole master and servant dynamic is a little archaic now, isn't it?

I have faith in the authenticity of the bible. I have faith that it has been altered many times in history. I have faith that certain men would do this if it was to their advantage. A person is only considered paranoid it something bothers them, I don't really care if it has been modified so I am not paranoid about it.

reply to post by rickymouse

I have faith in the authenticity of the bible. I have faith that it has been altered many times in history. I have faith that certain men would do this if it was to their advantage.

See, you have faith and it still doesn't work. Looks to me like the great and powerful act of faith might not be the magical cure-all, answer-all ingredient I took it for after all.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


Apology accepted.

reply to post by Tucket


Well, there is the point, as regards Romans 3:28, where Luther "inferred" Paul's intention to insert the word "alone" in the phrase "alone through faith". That was a change in scripture, in concordance with Luther's theology, so you're right on one level. But it doesn't pervade the Bible to the point of changing it, and there are other translations that don't include that word, so not much of a conspiracy there.

Calvin wasn't a follower of Luther, he was a follower of Zwingli -- the Reformed theology of the church in Switzerland, as opposed to the Lutheran theology of the church in Germany. Reformed theology takes a rather extreme view of some of the premises postulated by Luther, culminating in Calvin's Doctrine of Double Predestination, which Luther would absolutely have disagreed with, had he still been alive when it came out.

Tucket
His theology has heavily influenced Christianity since the conception of the King James Bible. The bible itself was written mostly by William Tyndale under the direct guidance of Martin Luther. If Martin Luther introduced his own theology to the bible, then how authentic can we presume the texts to be?

Luther and Tyndale simply translated from existing texts, they didn't insert their own theology into the texts. The Luther Bible is still easily available on the web, and you can compare it to any other translation in existence. You can look at the Luther bible's wiki page for some examples of differences between it and other translations.

Luther did feel certain texts didn't hold the same 'authority' as others, because they in no way related back to Christ, or because he questioned if they had been in fact influenced by the Holy Spirit in their writing. He still included these books in his bible, but put them under a separate section.

As to the original texts (or fragments of texts), I believe that most, if not all, still exist and can be compared to what we have today. The Bible had been pretty much chosen by the early chruch as we can attest to through the still existing writings of Irenaeus. You cannot get a much better authority on the matter as he was actually the student of a student (polycarp) of John the Apostle.

Tucket
There are of course conspiracy theories about Martin Luther being an illuminati, but I ask this question also because of my own experience with the church.

I'm not sure where you got this from, the Illuminati didn't exist until 200 years after Luther's death.

Tucket
I always has difficulty grasping Luther's concept of "you are saved by faith alone," and that my best and worst deeds mean absolutely nothing to God, or that I'm worse than I know, but am washed clean by the blood of Jesus. These concepts confused me.

God is infinitely holy, and therefore even a single sin becomes infinitely unholy to God. There are no actions you can take that will “wipe away” a single sin, you don't have the ability to pay an infinite “price”. Only Christ had the ability to pay this price, and so he was sent to do exactly that. So your “works” are meaningless, only Christ could pay off your debt, which he did, and now you have grace extended to you through Christ.

This is clearly explained in the Bible, its not theology that comes from Luther:

Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

For further information you can look up: Sola Fide

Now in contrast, Catholicism teaches salvation through both “works and faith”, which is how they manipulated people into doing “works” for the church. When you hear folks accuse Christianity of being a religion of “control” its most likely that they have only been exposed to Catholic Theology. This is what started the entire Protestant Reformation, that the Church was “Selling salvation” through the use of indulgence peddlers.

Tucket
I recall questioning my youth pastor about bible content, and after awhile he said it was just something I had to "wrestle with." This, of course, confused me even more.

That is a pretty standard answer which is essentially their way of saying, “I have no idea what you're talking about”, or “I don't have the time to explain this in the depth that is going to be required”. Mine used to tell me, “You just have to take it on faith”. There is a shortage of Pastors right now, especially in the Lutheran Church, and getting one to sit and answer questions is difficult because they have so many others also needing their attention.

Tucket
One might think that God would channel down manuscripts that were clear and concise.

If you know with certainty, that means you cannot have faith. Life is nothing but a test of faith. If not there would be no need for any of us to have to go through it.

Tucket
I also wanted to mention the famous conspiracy theory about the Council of Nicea. Naysayers disregard it as garbage, claiming that the council was created to simply "affirm what was already known." But I remain suspicious. We get the gist of what happens today when the douche bags gather together for their councils, meetings, summits etc... it would've been different back then?

Nothing special happened at the Council of Nicaea other then the abolition of Arianism and the resulting Nicene Creed. Because of the Arian dispute, the creed confirms that Christ was made from the same “substance” as the Father (aka he was not a lesser creation of the father). If you are talking about the canonization of the Bible, that happened at the Council of Trent (over 1000 years later) as a result of Luther releasing his translation of the bible. The idea that the Council of Nicaea had anything to do with the writing of the bible is untrue, and comes from Dan Browns fictional story “The DaVinci Code”.

Tucket
On that day when Jesus magically fed 5000 people, its to bad he couldn't also have magically created 5000 indestructible bibles for the peasants as well.

He made 12 of them.

Can you provide a source for when you say the illuminati was conceived? Actually don't bother. Before the Illuminati they existed under another name. Who knows? Maybe the Rosicrucians?

I checked out conspiracies involving Martin Luther. There are some. You're probably aware of them all. The only one I'll bother mentioning is found in the book "Table Talks," by William Hazlitt. In page DCCLX, Luther touches briefly on the topic of Alchemy. He gives a very positive description of it. Alchemy is esoteric knowledge, magic. The Illuminati, masons, rosicrucians, Templars or whatever you want to call them have ties to magic. So does Satan.
I'm interested to know your views regarding secret societies. If you are looking for historical facts and convincing evidence, I can provide sources.

reply to post by Tucket

Historically the name refers to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1, 1776

reply to post by Tucket

Luther was a professor at the University of Wittenberg, if he made such a remark (which I am unfamilure with) it is possible that what he is acutally discussing is what we today call chemistry. Chemistry, medicine, and pharamcology all have roots in alchemy.

"The science of alchemy I like very well, and indeed, 'tis the philosophy of the ancients. I like it not only for the profits it brings in melting metals, in decocting, preparing, extracting and distilling herbs, roots; I like it also for the sake of the allegory and secret signification, which is exceedingly fine, touching the resurrection of the dead at the last day."

-Martin Luther

Chemistry?

You are right about the illuminati. My bad. I should have written Rosicrucians instead.

Also, since we're trying to stick to facts here, Dan Brown didn't create the theory about the council of nicea. I'm not sure who did, but I read about it in a book called "The gods of Eden," which was written well before The Da Vinci Code.