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P
Allan, there is a lot of things that happened in Jesus' day that we don't know about. Somewhere in the bible we're told (someone look that passage up for us please) that if everything Jesus did and said was recorded the earth wouldn't be big enough to hold it.
That being said, think about this: If something was secret, until recently, that would mean that somehow there was gospel God wanted us to have that people didn't get for 2000 years. That is impossible. The bible is complete and it contains all that God wanted us to know at this time.
Keep your nose in the bible. The reward is beyond your imagination and/or belief.
That being said, think about this: If something was secret, until recently, that would mean that somehow there was gospel God wanted us to have that people didn't get for 2000 years. That is impossible. The bible is complete and it contains all that God wanted us to know at this time.
Keep your nose in the bible. The reward is beyond your imagination and/or belief.
A pericope is just any designated portion of a text such as the one in question. These manuscripts represent very good evidence in support of that text. It is amazing to me that many of those who try to call the portion of Mark 16 into question citing poor manuscript evidence as the reason are some of the same ones who will fight to the death to defend the Comma Johanneum (1John 5:7-8) in spite of the fact that it has almost NO early manuscript evidence to support it. People simply do not like what the longer reading of Mark 16 has to say so they attempt to find some way to discredit it. The truth is that it simply cannot be discredited on the basis of insufficient reliable manuscript evidence.
V
Best advise we can offer to a seeker:
1. Pray that God open your mind as you seek Him.
2. Simply read His word, without commentaries or others' opinions.
3. If you have questions, seek out someone that you personally trust, whom you can talk to face-to-face, or at least over the phone or via Skype. IMs and emails are even to open to misinterpretation from someone you know, so be able to hear their voice and, if possible, see their face.
4. Pray that God gives you others who can help you understand Him, who can offer solid testimony of what He has done in their lives through Jesus Christ.
5. Ask them to pray for you, that you have understanding, that you are open to His leading. Also, that you would be led to a good church that will help you understand even more.
6. Ask us to pray for you, in whatever ways you feel the need for prayer.
7. Don't be afraid. This is an exciting time.
1. Pray that God open your mind as you seek Him.
2. Simply read His word, without commentaries or others' opinions.
3. If you have questions, seek out someone that you personally trust, whom you can talk to face-to-face, or at least over the phone or via Skype. IMs and emails are even to open to misinterpretation from someone you know, so be able to hear their voice and, if possible, see their face.
4. Pray that God gives you others who can help you understand Him, who can offer solid testimony of what He has done in their lives through Jesus Christ.
5. Ask them to pray for you, that you have understanding, that you are open to His leading. Also, that you would be led to a good church that will help you understand even more.
6. Ask us to pray for you, in whatever ways you feel the need for prayer.
7. Don't be afraid. This is an exciting time.
R
after the biblical gospels were written numerous other 'gospels' appeared adding to or embellishing the originals...there was an entire literary 'industry' producing secret gospels...infancy gospels...gospels attributed to other apostles and other new testament characters...gnostic gospels...and so on...
there were two primary motivations for these fabrications...one was to satisfy people's natural curiosity by 'filling in the blanks' left in the original gospels with their own fiction...for example the authors of the infancy gospels made up stories of jesus' childhood...
the same kind of thing had happened with the old testament books a few hundred years earlier...that is the origin of jubilees and the enochian literature...wherever scripture does not go into detail someone will try to fill in the blanks with mythology...
the second reason was more sinister...cults were springing up everywhere...and with christianity being the fastest growing religion at the time...there were many cults that wanted to make it appear that their teachings came from jesus...they did this by fabricating gospels that depicted jesus teaching their doctrines...
there were two primary motivations for these fabrications...one was to satisfy people's natural curiosity by 'filling in the blanks' left in the original gospels with their own fiction...for example the authors of the infancy gospels made up stories of jesus' childhood...
the same kind of thing had happened with the old testament books a few hundred years earlier...that is the origin of jubilees and the enochian literature...wherever scripture does not go into detail someone will try to fill in the blanks with mythology...
the second reason was more sinister...cults were springing up everywhere...and with christianity being the fastest growing religion at the time...there were many cults that wanted to make it appear that their teachings came from jesus...they did this by fabricating gospels that depicted jesus teaching their doctrines...
A
May I safely assume you have some device to access the Internet -- like a smartphone, tablet, or computer? Assuming yes, may I assume it came with an instruction book?
Quick. Who wrote that? When? How? Did the writer get it all right, or is there debate going on about some aspect of it? After all, how can you possibly trust a book when you don't know all that stuff, right? (Yes, I am sarcastic. Why do you ask? lol)
How did you trust your textbooks back in school? How do you trust sites online? Do you investigate them too? Do you then research who the author is? And, yes, I'm not completely nuts, there really does come a time when it's time to research all this stuff, but, really? Why this book, without doing the same thing to all other reference books you've ever read?
Have you ever studied anything else that you were curious about just to study it before? (I'm also assume you've done that too.) Ever pick a subject that you weren't completely caught up in believing even when you started?
For me, it's dinosaurs and older hominids. The stuff fascinates me, probably since I grew up near the site where they found the first full skeleton in America and actually finally figured out there really were some huge reptiles living in America before Europeans ever came here. But, yo, I'm a creationist, so obviously I'm still skeptical. That's fine. Not like I can't believe in dinos and earlier forms of humans, right? But I do read with an open mind, let it sink in, don't have to spend much (usually any) time figuring out who the writer was or why he/she wrote, and can still think on my own after I'm done.
Tell me you can't do the same thing.
So really? Why are you wasting this much time researching all the background to every book you're reading in the Bible just to settle on if you should believe it? Not like that's needed, but here you are doing that anyway.
Just seems to me you're spending an inordinate amount of time making up reasons to skip what you already promised you do -- read the Bible.
Lots of folks have been telling you how to read it, who you need to decipher it, what you need here and what you need there, but despite all that, you said from the beginning you just want to read it. Okay? Read it.
I trust in three things right now:
1. You're smart enough to read it all the way through.
2. If God is going to do something with you as you read it, God's going to do something with you as you read it.
3. I've read enough reference books written by fallible man to know Man is capable of writing stuff without errors once in a while. If something has a bunch of errors in it, the writing won't make a big splash and won't continue to be read. If it's relatively error free, the writing will stick around for a while. (The Bible is, at least, 1900 years old. Some of it is much older than that, and it's still the all-time best seller.)
I have no idea if God will get through to you or not, but whatever plans he has, he'll do. You're just supposed to read it. So, seriously, who cares if there is a secret gospel of Mark or not? Kind of like trying to figure out Dobby's genealogy before reading Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. Who cares until you actually read it and that's not part of the story anyway.
And, that's just me knowing I can come up with just as many excuses not to do something I set myself to do as you can. lol
Quick. Who wrote that? When? How? Did the writer get it all right, or is there debate going on about some aspect of it? After all, how can you possibly trust a book when you don't know all that stuff, right? (Yes, I am sarcastic. Why do you ask? lol)
How did you trust your textbooks back in school? How do you trust sites online? Do you investigate them too? Do you then research who the author is? And, yes, I'm not completely nuts, there really does come a time when it's time to research all this stuff, but, really? Why this book, without doing the same thing to all other reference books you've ever read?
Have you ever studied anything else that you were curious about just to study it before? (I'm also assume you've done that too.) Ever pick a subject that you weren't completely caught up in believing even when you started?
For me, it's dinosaurs and older hominids. The stuff fascinates me, probably since I grew up near the site where they found the first full skeleton in America and actually finally figured out there really were some huge reptiles living in America before Europeans ever came here. But, yo, I'm a creationist, so obviously I'm still skeptical. That's fine. Not like I can't believe in dinos and earlier forms of humans, right? But I do read with an open mind, let it sink in, don't have to spend much (usually any) time figuring out who the writer was or why he/she wrote, and can still think on my own after I'm done.
Tell me you can't do the same thing.
So really? Why are you wasting this much time researching all the background to every book you're reading in the Bible just to settle on if you should believe it? Not like that's needed, but here you are doing that anyway.
Just seems to me you're spending an inordinate amount of time making up reasons to skip what you already promised you do -- read the Bible.
Lots of folks have been telling you how to read it, who you need to decipher it, what you need here and what you need there, but despite all that, you said from the beginning you just want to read it. Okay? Read it.
I trust in three things right now:
1. You're smart enough to read it all the way through.
2. If God is going to do something with you as you read it, God's going to do something with you as you read it.
3. I've read enough reference books written by fallible man to know Man is capable of writing stuff without errors once in a while. If something has a bunch of errors in it, the writing won't make a big splash and won't continue to be read. If it's relatively error free, the writing will stick around for a while. (The Bible is, at least, 1900 years old. Some of it is much older than that, and it's still the all-time best seller.)
I have no idea if God will get through to you or not, but whatever plans he has, he'll do. You're just supposed to read it. So, seriously, who cares if there is a secret gospel of Mark or not? Kind of like trying to figure out Dobby's genealogy before reading Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. Who cares until you actually read it and that's not part of the story anyway.
And, that's just me knowing I can come up with just as many excuses not to do something I set myself to do as you can. lol
T
I read something about it. A copy of a letter alleged to have been written by Clement of Alexandria was supposed to have been discovered
by an academic called Morton Smith in a Monastry back in the 1970s. It was written on the back of an old book about Clement. This letter disappeared some time later. In it Clement quotes a passage from what he claimed to be a more spiritual version of Marks Gospel. It has something to do with a youth that Jesus raised from the dead and is similar to the story of Lazarus. People are divided as to whether it was Genuine oor a forgery created by Smith himself. Whatever the answer it all sounds a bit fishy to me.
by an academic called Morton Smith in a Monastry back in the 1970s. It was written on the back of an old book about Clement. This letter disappeared some time later. In it Clement quotes a passage from what he claimed to be a more spiritual version of Marks Gospel. It has something to do with a youth that Jesus raised from the dead and is similar to the story of Lazarus. People are divided as to whether it was Genuine oor a forgery created by Smith himself. Whatever the answer it all sounds a bit fishy to me.
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A
Its not making excuses. I am reading it.
This endeavour could change my life and others have told me this could be the single most important thing I ever do.
Are you saying something that carries that much weight shouldn't be researched properly?
You can't just put a book in front of someone that doesn't match up with their current view of the world and expect them to take in on face value. Especially when it directly conflicts with everything you thought you knew about the world.
For me to accept this, I have to change my entire world view. Everything I thought I knew will be eradicated. To say I'm sidestepping reading the bible in favour of researching it is ridiculous. I read sections, re read sections, look for further information and I get all views that may oppose or agree.
Anyone who Doesnt do that is not really trying to understand anything.
This endeavour could change my life and others have told me this could be the single most important thing I ever do.
Are you saying something that carries that much weight shouldn't be researched properly?
You can't just put a book in front of someone that doesn't match up with their current view of the world and expect them to take in on face value. Especially when it directly conflicts with everything you thought you knew about the world.
For me to accept this, I have to change my entire world view. Everything I thought I knew will be eradicated. To say I'm sidestepping reading the bible in favour of researching it is ridiculous. I read sections, re read sections, look for further information and I get all views that may oppose or agree.
Anyone who Doesnt do that is not really trying to understand anything.