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Apr 11, 2016
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The consensus among biblical scholars for the past 100 years is that the writters of the gospels can not possibly be the apostles themselves, only 7 of the books attributed to Paul are really by him, etc etc. the authors were not present at the events. Paul is not a witness, he never met Jesus, doesn't claim to and that's that. look it up, this is not crazy talk, this is what scholars are saying, only fundamentalist deny it and their arguments are faulty. it is a matter of reading the literature and finding out. if you read only the american fundamentalists literature on the subject you get a skewed view of the matter. the majority of christians todays agree with what i wrote in my post, that's the reality. if you don't know about it or deny it, then i don't want to talk to you because you are either ignorant or close minded. you just have to face the facts, I'm not making them up.
 
Apr 11, 2016
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okay, Matthew and John , the apostles who saw what happened, are not the authors of the gospels attributed to their name. That's a fact. check it up.
 
Apr 11, 2016
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you can find better source than wikipedia on your own.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
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The consensus among biblical scholars for the past 100 years is that the writters of the gospels can not possibly be the apostles themselves, only 7 of the books attributed to Paul are really by him, etc etc. the authors were not present at the events. Paul is not a witness, he never met Jesus, doesn't claim to and that's that. look it up, this is not crazy talk, this is what scholars are saying, only fundamentalist deny it and their arguments are faulty. it is a matter of reading the literature and finding out. if you read only the american fundamentalists literature on the subject you get a skewed view of the matter. the majority of christians todays agree with what i wrote in my post, that's the reality. if you don't know about it or deny it, then i don't want to talk to you because you are either ignorant or close minded. you just have to face the facts, I'm not making them up.
Actually Paul did claim to have met Jesus, the Risen Lord. Where are you getting your information? Atheist sources? LOL. You need to upgrade the quality of the services you consult.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
55,247
25,716
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okay, Matthew and John , the apostles who saw what happened, are not the authors of the gospels attributed to their name. That's a fact. check it up.
They are still the source, whether they wrote the actual gospel or not. That was the point I made and the one you originally overlooked and pretended I had not made and called me names over while requesting we treat you respectfully. LOL.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
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Actually Paul did claim to have met Jesus, the Risen Lord. Where are you getting your information? Atheist sources? LOL. You need to upgrade the quality of the services you consult.
I suggest you read the Bible. Novel concept, I know,
but you might actually learn something worth knowing in there.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
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I believe you are in error here. ;)
Do you have any evidence to back this claim? Sources I have consulted say that nothing written by Socrates remains extant. According to the standards professional historians and scholars employ, manuscript reliability for the New Testament is much better than for any other ancient personage... a point I have made repeatedly.

Plato’s works on Socrates were written between 427-347 B.C. The earliest copy of his manuscript is from 900 A.D., representing a staggering 1,200 year time span of lost earlier versions. Seven copies of this ancient manuscript remain in existence today and can be comparatively studied. The earliest copy of Aristophanes’ work is from 900 A.D., a time span of 1,200 years from the original manuscript. Only ten copies have survived. The earliest copy of one of Aristotle’s manuscripts is from 1100 A.D. (1,400 year time span) with as many as 49 copies existing.

During the 900-1,200 year interval of the writings on Socrates, no records exist. Copies were made of copies, repeatedly. Without earlier testimony, however, it is unknown how extensive the text may have changed. What mistakes were made in translation? What did editors add or subtract in an effort to clarify statements? No records exist to attest to their veracity within one millennium of their original composition.

COMPARE:
HOW DO THE YEARS STACK UP FOR JESUS?

The Gospels and the other New Testament writings show a comparatively high level of reliability. The earliest existing piece of a New Testament Gospel is the John Rylands fragment which contains several verses of the Book of John. Currently housed in the John Rylands Museum (Manchester, England), it is dated on paleographical grounds around 130 A.D. One of the earliest and most complete copies of the Book of John is the Bodmer Papyrus II which contains Chapters 1.1-6.11 and 6.35-14.15. It dates from about 200 AD (although some scholars actually date it to the middle or first half of the first century.)

Two of the earliest and most complete copies of the Bible in existence today are the codex Vaticanus and the codex Sinaiticus (located in the Vatican Library and the British Museum, respectively). They were reportedly among the 50 manuscripts that Constantine ordered upon his conversion to Christianity. They date from 325-350 AD … within 300 years after the New Testament writings were complete.

The interval of less than 100 years for extant manuscripts of the Book of John and 200-300 years for the other Gospel accounts, when compared to the same bibliographical criteria as standard for other classical works, is essentiallynegligible. Representing the passing of only a couple generations, there is minimal time for copyist error and greater control on additions or deletions made to the text.

Indeed, few errors have been found between the 21st century version of the Gospels and the extant manuscripts. “The great scholar F.J.A. Hort said that apart from insignificant variations of grammar or spelling, not more than one-thousandth part of the whole New Testament is affected by differences of reading.” (Paul Little, Know Why You Believe).

In addition to the brief time span, the number of existing ancient manuscripts of the New Testament is tremendous. “Approximately 5,000 Greek manuscripts (including codex Vaticanus and codex Sinaiticus), containing all or part of the New Testament, exist. There are 8,000 manuscript copies of the Vulgate (a Latin translation of the Bible done by Jerome from 382-405) and more than 350 copies of Syriac (Christian Aramaic) versions of the New Testament (these originated from 150-250; most of the copies are from the 400s).Socrates and Jesus: Proof Across the Millenium - Sharon R Hoover
 

Red_Tory

Senior Member
Jan 26, 2010
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Do you have any evidence to back this claim? Sources I have consulted say that nothing written by Socrates remains extant.
Nothing written by Socrates remains extant because he didn't write his thoughts down. All of those works to which you refer were written about him by others. It is entirely reasonable to think that Socrates wrote nothing. Remember: a man who knows the just and good and honorable will not, in earnest, write his thoughts in water with pen and ink, sowing words which can neither speak for themselves nor convey the truth adequately to others. So-said Socrates, at least.

Hence the wink.
 
J

jaybird88

Guest
The consensus among biblical scholars for the past 100 years is that the writters of the gospels can not possibly be the apostles themselves, only 7 of the books attributed to Paul are really by him, etc etc. the authors were not present at the events. Paul is not a witness, he never met Jesus, doesn't claim to and that's that. look it up, this is not crazy talk, this is what scholars are saying, only fundamentalist deny it and their arguments are faulty. it is a matter of reading the literature and finding out. if you read only the american fundamentalists literature on the subject you get a skewed view of the matter. the majority of christians todays agree with what i wrote in my post, that's the reality. if you don't know about it or deny it, then i don't want to talk to you because you are either ignorant or close minded. you just have to face the facts, I'm not making them up.
there are many Christians that take paul with a grain of salt.

as for the 12 Apostles and the 4 gospels, its interesting that the in the case of every one of them, the early church fathers believed they were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. the early traditions also attest to this belief. one more important thing, the first few generation church fathers would have been before the church became the official church of the roman empire. in other words they had noting to gain politically by lying, making things up and all the rest.
 
Apr 8, 2016
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The consensus among biblical scholars for the past 100 years is that the writters of the gospels can not possibly be the apostles themselves, only 7 of the books attributed to Paul are really by him, etc etc. the authors were not present at the events. Paul is not a witness, he never met Jesus, doesn't claim to and that's that. look it up, this is not crazy talk, this is what scholars are saying, only fundamentalist deny it and their arguments are faulty. it is a matter of reading the literature and finding out. if you read only the american fundamentalists literature on the subject you get a skewed view of the matter. the majority of christians todays agree with what i wrote in my post, that's the reality. if you don't know about it or deny it, then i don't want to talk to you because you are either ignorant or close minded. you just have to face the facts, I'm not making them up.
Lol...good one. :D

The concensus among God is
ALL power in heaven an earth belongs to Jesus.
Here's the fact, Jack.....
Jesus loves you, He died for YOUR sin,
He rose from the grave, and He's coming again!

EVERY knee shall bow to Him, whether with a joyful, grateful heart,
or through gritted hateful teeth, every knee shall bow to Him,
and rightly so.

He's King of kings, and Lord of lords, and btw,
Magenta is a child of God which makes her a daughter of the
King of glory, and our Father in heaven is keenly aware of
everything your saying on these threads,
so I suggest you very carefully re-consider
the things you say, and your position of being anti-Christ.

Your life is but a vapor that will soon be over,
and then eternity begins for you, and that's a very long time.

But, in spite of your insulting ignorance,
I still pray for you to have a change of heart and mind,
believe on Jesus and get saved, if for no other reason,
(and I have a few, my Savior Jesus number one),
hell was created for the devil and his ilk, not man, necessarily,
and I just don't want to see that dirty devil
get even a tiny speck of victory,
by luring another man into outer darkness,
even if that tiny speck is you, kraka.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
55,247
25,716
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Nothing written by Socrates remains extant because he didn't write his thoughts down. All of those works to which you refer were written about him by others. It is entirely reasonable to think that Socrates wrote nothing. Remember: a man who knows the just and good and honorable will not, in earnest, write his thoughts in water with pen and ink, sowing words which can neither speak for themselves nor convey the truth adequately to others. So-said Socrates, at least.

Hence the wink.
Ah! I see. But... how do you know he wrote nothing down? Even the copies of what exists of his thoughts are unreliable by scholarly standards, compared to Scriptures especially. Nine hundred years with no copies of the copies is a long time! Is this where I should insert a winkie face? ;) But it has been interesting reading about Socrates, who was said to be contemptuous of people who think that something has to be graspable in the hands to be real... and that knowledge comes from divine insight. No one knows the extent to which some of Plato's writing might have been later revised and rewritten, and even the Socratic diaogues are not something that anyone knows whether Plato actually heard firsthand. Socrates seems to have been largely a voice Plato used to express his ideas in writing. Still, people rarely seem to doubt that Socrates actually existed.
 
R

roaringkitten

Guest
The consensus among biblical scholars for the past 100 years is that the writters of the gospels can not possibly be the apostles themselves, only 7 of the books attributed to Paul are really by him, etc etc. the authors were not present at the events. Paul is not a witness, he never met Jesus, doesn't claim to and that's that. look it up, this is not crazy talk, this is what scholars are saying, only fundamentalist deny it and their arguments are faulty. it is a matter of reading the literature and finding out. if you read only the american fundamentalists literature on the subject you get a skewed view of the matter. the majority of christians todays agree with what i wrote in my post, that's the reality. if you don't know about it or deny it, then i don't want to talk to you because you are either ignorant or close minded. you just have to face the facts, I'm not making them up.
Hey listen, you beat people up in this thread for claiming they don't bring good enough proof to you, but your quote here has NO links, no sources that back up your claims. Just your words with no proof!

The Bible claims to testify of Jesus in John 5:39. You are only going to be able to prove Jesus from the Bible. John 5:39 says to search the Scriptures:

"Search the scriptures......they are they which testify of me." John 5:39

The book is written of Him!

"Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me" Psa 40:7


Let's suppose someone walked up to you while you were away from your house and claimed there was a garter snake under your bed. You wouldn't go to a ophidiologist to see if such snakes exist in the area. You wouldn't research statistics to see the chances of running into a snake in a house is. You would go into the house and search under the bed to see if the claim was true. If you want to know if Jesus is in the Bible you have to go to the Bible, the source of where the claim is made, open up the pages and look inside to see if He is there. If you can't find Him in there, then you will just have to reject Him. At that point there would be nothing we could do to help you.
 
B

BeyondET

Guest
Today's date, many are being used today centered around belief/religion here are the popular choices.
in saying this (a choice) this will include religion and non religion in making a choice in what to believe the date will determine ones belief/religion... regardless if a person says I'm only going by this time because it's the most popular being used were one lives. It's still a choice because a person doesn't have to go by the same dates to live along side each other were they are currently living together on earth. I know people who live around me using different dates than what I'm using 4/28/2016 and still do just fine adapting to their surroundings, go to work, keeping appointment etc..

Im interested in knowing what dates do people here believe in? And in excepting a date is excepting it's belief per say.
a accomplish in the same belief/religion date system based on belief/religion. if a person says they don't believe in a religion,
then there's afew choices for that as well. to say 4/28/2016 and say they have no faith surely one would need to rethink again and make the right choice in date for their belief/religion in what ever it may be.


[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Gregorian:[/TD]
[TD]Thursday, 28 April 2016[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Mayan:[/TD]
[TD]Long count = 13.0.3.7.4; tzolkin = 6 Kan; haab = 7 Uo[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]French:[/TD]
[TD]10 Floréal an 224 de la Révolution[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Islamic:[/TD]
[TD]20 Rajab 1437[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Hebrew:[/TD]
[TD]20 Nisan 5776[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Julian:[/TD]
[TD]15 April 2016[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]ISO:[/TD]
[TD]Day 4 of week 17 of 2016[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Persian:[/TD]
[TD]9 Ordibehest 1395[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Ethiopic:[/TD]
[TD]20 Miyazya 2008[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Coptic:[/TD]
[TD]20 Barmundah 1732[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Chinese:[/TD]
[TD]Cycle 78, year 33 (Bing-Shen), month 3 (Ren-Chen), day 22 (Geng-Chen)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Julian day:[/TD]
[TD]2457507[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Day of year:[/TD]
[TD]Day 119 of 2016; 247 days remaining in the year[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: right"]Discordian:[/TD]
[TD]Pungenday, Discord 45, Year of Our Lady of Discord 3182
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
 
P

pottersclay

Guest
Karaka, you seem to have gone to every resource you could to discredit the bible, why would you want to do any homework when it's all been done for you. Why take the words of evil men that scoff and hate God because if he does exists it would make you accountable for your actions and we don't want that do we.
Have you taken the time to research their resources? To see if they're in err? What kind of research have you done to prove or disprove them. Most likely none. I mean hey why bother if they're in agreement with you or vise versa. Did you ever stop to think that this matter is a matter of life and death? That your very life hinges on the possibility of Gods existence.
Think long and hard my friend on what your dealing with . What your searching for. Are you going to really trust other men's findings with your life? Are you that foolish? You presented yourself as a pretty smart fellow
 
Apr 11, 2016
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Karaka, you seem to have gone to every resource you could to discredit the bible, why would you want to do any homework when it's all been done for you. Why take the words of evil men that scoff and hate God because if he does exists it would make you accountable for your actions and we don't want that do we.
Have you taken the time to research their resources? To see if they're in err? What kind of research have you done to prove or disprove them. Most likely none. I mean hey why bother if they're in agreement with you or vise versa. Did you ever stop to think that this matter is a matter of life and death? That your very life hinges on the possibility of Gods existence.
Think long and hard my friend on what your dealing with . What your searching for. Are you going to really trust other men's findings with your life? Are you that foolish? You presented yourself as a pretty smart fellow
I think that is a cheap shot, and I'm not even going to respond to Magenta's inanities.
It appears that I've done more research on this topic, in the last week alone, than any of you. I've read about 12 books on the subject since I started this thread. I made a point in reading book alternatively from apologists and from non believers. I have a bible by my bed side and refer to it constantly to double check what I read. Have I checked my ressources? as far as possible. The conclusions about the bible i posted here and that people are objecting to are not mine directly, they are what i took note of as the concensus among biblical scholars, believers and non believers, apologists included. I could shower you with sources and references and such but i'm just baffled what i wrote is met with such incredulity, what I'm saying , as far as i can tell, is what is taught in all major biblical schools and seminaries in the americas and europe. That is what your pastor was taught when he was in seminary. if you do not believe me, the best thing you can do to check it is to ask him next sunday, copy what i say here, and go ask him if that is correct or not, and you'll see what he say; i urge you to do this. this is not crazy satanist talk, this is what the serious biblical scholars have found out and teach the clergy in seminaries, this is official stuff at the vatican and in most major creeds. this is what a critical historical review of the bible shows. so let me repeat it:

The reality is that we do not have the actual word of God in the Bible, since we do not have the originals and in some places we do not know what the originals said.


There are flat out discrepancies among the books of the NT. Sometimes these discrepancies can be reconciled if one work hard enough at it with pious imagination, but other times the discrepancies can not, in my judgement and according to many serious biblical scholar I've read, be reconciled, however fanciful the explanation. (i.e. : Jesus dies on different days in Mark and John).

Sometimes the differences are not only on small details, but sometimes different authors have completey different understandings of important issues : was Jesus in despair on the cross (Mark) or calm and in control (Luke) ? Did Jesus death provide an atonement for sin( Mark and Paul) or not (Luke) ? Did Jesus perform signs to prove who he was (John) or did he refuse to do so (Matthew) ? Must Jesus folowers keep the law if they enter the kingdom (Matthew) or absolutely not (Paul) ?


Many of the books of the NT were not written by the people to whom they are attributed (Matthew and John) or by the people who claimed to be writting them (2 Peter, 1 Timothy). Most of the books of the NT were written after the apostles themselves were dead, only 8 of the 27 books of the NT are almost certain of having been written by the people traditionally thought to be their authors.


The gospels contain stories that had been in oral circulation for decades before they were written down. This makes it very difficult to know what Jesus actually said, did and experienced. The reality is that the Jesus portrayed in the gospels represents a later understanding of who Jesus was, not a historical account of who he really was.


There were lots of other gospels available to early christians, as well as epistles, acts and apocalypses. Many of those claim to have been written by apostles and those claims are no more or less plausible than the claims of the books who eventually made it in the NT. It makes me wonder who made the decisions of what books to include and on what grounds. Is it possible that books that should have been included were left out and that some that are in the NT shouldn't be in it ?


Important doctrines, such as that of a suffering Messiah, the divinity of Christ, the trinity and the existence of heaven and hell are clearly not teachings of Jesus, but later inventions of the early church.

If you disagree with this, you have not done your homework. I urge you to look it up. those are the facts.
 
Apr 11, 2016
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Actually Paul did claim to have met Jesus, the Risen Lord. Where are you getting your information? Atheist sources? LOL. You need to upgrade the quality of the services you consult.
Paul never claimed to have met jesus in person. check your bible, send me the quote.
 
Apr 11, 2016
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I have told you a number of times I do not necessarily read your long posts, especially if they are not addressed to me. Do you think you bring anything new to the table? Think again. After eight years of talking to atheists and agnostics and polytheists and wiccans and Satanists etc, well, let's just say you bring nothing new to the table. I ask you to perform an experiment on yourself and you give me a link. LOL! You can't even do it, instead giving me some pathetic excuse with an appeal to authority attached while you complain about appeals to authority and argue from ignorance. Round and round we go. Really! Nothing new under the sun, Solomon said. And he was right.
okay no long post then: in response to your believing you are dead challenge, i respond that people do indeed believe they are dead, it is a condition called cotard's syndrome. it is a mental condition, it is linbked to a brain malfunction, and it is sometimes curable.
so what do you say? can people believe they are dead or can't they?

and to come back to the point, are they correct in believing they are dead or not?

and if they are not, what does that tell us about what we are certain about?
 
B

BeyondET

Guest
Something worth knowing also is that people went to great lengths to try and preserve what they could from the first writings to even today people are destroying writings and artifacts etc around the world.. a lot of people had writings though surely there were gangs of people rounding up every piece of info they could to burn it destroy it etc. No doubt people were hiding their writings in those times. there were a lot of people that wanted books to be burned and no account of anything. Quite afew empires have tried to destroy society's in 2000yrs and some have succeeded.