A KISSed History of Beliefs

Now you are just playing games...

That's the thing about free will. Folks can play games all they want regardless of who they mislead. Problem with several of your statements/opinions is the Holy Spirit does not inspire one to mislead believers with bad interpretations of Scripture. Neither does the Holy Spirit inspire one to accuse all who disagree with their "opinion" of Scripture to be unbelievers as you have done over and over on your various threads.

Without providing any documented evidence that you are even qualified to be the "Teacher of all" here, you assume the roll. There are many Members here who are highly qualified to fulfill that roll on Christian Chat. You are just the latest to come and assume your opinion(s) are the only truth being spoken here.

Enjoy your time here, but as for me and my house, I find no spiritual value in your commentary thus far. Given that.......I will bid you good luck and don't bother to unpack. Methinks you will not be around that long.

Wow! That rant prompted by my saying the I believe the opinions I post regarding GW are truth or inspired by the HS, whom Jesus said would guide us into all truth (JN 16:13)?

1. While I enjoy discussing GW, I do not consider it a game.
2. The problem with your opinion is that it is not constructive or seeking spiritual unity.
3. If we make accusations, we should quote the objectionable item, because I am unaware of making such an accusation.
4. I try to cite Scripture as much as possible, as in the statement that set you off.
5. I do NOT assume the roll of Teacher of all, but I would not mind being viewed as a lead learner.
6. Ditto your accusation that I assume I am the only one sharing truth here.
7. I am sorry you do not find what I share to be edifying.
8. Methinks you have a judgmental spirit, but hopefully I have the wrong impression.

Anyway, The return of the Jewish exiles apparently occurred in at least five stages.

First, Sheshbazzar returned and began work on the foundations of a new temple.

During the reign of Darius I (522-486) Zerubbabel led an attempt to restore the temple that was stymied by Samaritan opposition.

It was during the reign of the next king, Xerxes (486-465) that the events in the book of Esther occurred.

Third, in the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes I (465-425), Nehemiah was appointed governor of Judah and allowed to rebuild Jerusalem’s city wall (NEH 2:1-20 & 6:15).

Next, work on the temple began again in the second year of the reign of King Darius II (423-404), during the prophetic ministries of Haggai and Zechariah (EZR 4:24-5:2, HAG 1:1-15, ZCH 1:1-17, 4:6-10 & 8:9-15).

Finally, in the seventh year of the reign of king Artaxerxes II (404-359), Ezra the priest led an expedition from Babylon and reinstituted Judaism. He apparently ignored the messianic prophecies, which set the stage for conflict between the Pharisees and Christians. About this time Malachi wrote what proved to be the last book in the OT canon.

In 500 a rebellion against Persian rule by the Greek cities in Lydia/Ionia was abetted by Athens, so Darius I attempted to conquer Greece. However, his army was defeated at a battle on the plains of Marathon in 490. His son Xerxes marched an army across the Dardanelles Strait (Hellespont) on a pontoon bridge in 480, but his navy was defeated in the Bay of Salamis, so he had to abort the attack.

In order to be prepared for future Persian attacks, Athens formed an alliance called the Delian league, which won another naval victory over the Persian fleet defending Ionia in 468. This prompted Sparta to form a league, which fought the Peloponnesian War with the Delian league from 431-404 with Persian financial aid. Both sides were so weakened that they were easily conquered by Philip of Macedon in 338.

I forget what I said to him, but he was swearing. Denying God. As he did he looked up at the archway of the doorway as if he was looking up at God himself. This told me he did believe, as he looked at God, in he's imagination.

There was also cave man drawings of adam and eve discovered in china. Plus the flood story is in almost all cultures. But they are all little bit different.

There's a book on this. I have it somewhere

The period before Philip’s conquest was a golden age, which included work by Pericles (statesman), Herodotus and Thucydides (historians), Sophocles and Euripedes (dramatists), Euclid (mathematicians), and Hippocrates (medical doctor).

In philosophy, Anaxorgas (c.430) was the first atomic theorist, although he also believed in a cosmic nous, and Protagoras (d.420) was a sophist, relativist, and (secular) humanist, saying that “man is the measure of all things”. He was opposed by Socrates (d.399), who utilized a dialectic method using inductive logic, and who said “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Antisthenes, a student of Socrates, noted that every definition is tautolotical and descriptive, and along with Diogenes (d.325) is viewed as founding Cynicism, which preached asceticism and the debunking of customs that substitute for morals.

Another student of Socrates was Plato (427-347), who wrote Dialogues and The Republic, and who founded a school called the Academy about 387. He viewed himself as a gadfly for truth and taught that God is good, and good is absolute. He believed in eternal Ideas/Forms, four virtues, and three social classes. His pupil was Aristotle, who wrote Nichomean Ethics, advocating the “golden mean” and saying that happiness accompanies virtuous activity. He differed with Plato in saying that universals do not exist independently of particular entities (a debate which dominated medieval philosophy). He established a school called the Lyceum in 335, and was hired by Philip to tutor Alexander.

Epicurus (c.310) taught atomism, the finality of death, and that pleasure and pain are the determiners of what is good and bad. Influenced by the Cynics, Zeno (c. 301) founded Stoicism by preaching that virtue consists in aligning desire with the universal deterministic Logos.

Alexander was a great military commander. He became king in 336 at the age of twenty when his father was assassinated, and he carried out his father’s dream of conquering the Persian Empire. He led his army across the Hellespont and defeated the Persian army at the Battle of Issus in 333. Then he marched along the coast, where Tyre finally succumbed after a seven month siege. Next he marched to Egypt, where he was welcomed by the populace as a liberator. Returning northward, Alexander’s forces won another major battle with the Persians at Gaugamela on the way to Babylon in 331. Not yet content, he attempted to invade India but died of a fever in 323.

When Alexander died, the empire fractured and was fought over by his generals. As the struggle progressed, the one with the most territory was Seleucus, who controlled the region from Asia Minor to the Indus. His chief rival was Ptolemy, who ruled Egypt and Palestine. To the east, the region of Bactria was allowed to drift out of the Seleucid Empire, and a man named Chandragupta Maurya established an indigenous empire in India.

Elsewhere in the world, the Mayan civilization developed in the Yucatan peninsula, and in Africa the Kushite kingdom in Nubia had a thriving trade with merchants as far away as China.

To the west of the Seleucid Empire, Greece became divided into various city-states and leagues again. Further west, the Roman Republic gained control of the Italian peninsula in 270 when it annexed the Greek cities in the southern tip. Carthage dominated the western Mediterranean and soon was fighting Rome over the islands of Sicily, Sardina and Corsica in a series of battles called the Punic Wars from 264 until 202, when Rome finally won. During this time in Alexandria, about seventy Jewish scholars created the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Rome defeated Philip V (who had supported Hannibal’s invasion of Italy from Spain in 218) in 197. Then Rome attacked the Seleucid king, Antiochus III (who had provided Hannibal refuge in Antioch after he was defeated by Scipio in 202), when he tried to invade Greece in 192, and forced him to surrender his navy and most of Asia Minor.

His successor, Antiochus IV or Epiphanes (“god manifest”) tried to conquer the Ptolemaic Empire in 167, but he was intercepted by a Roman envoy, who drew a circle on the ground around Antiochus and demanded that he promise to withdraw before stepping outside of it. Antiochus promised. Later that same year, Antiochus’ response to civil unrest in Jerusalem was vicious. He endeavored to suppress Judaism by outlawing circumcision, observance of the Sabbath, and possession of the OT Scriptures. An altar to Zeus was erected in the temple, and on it unclean animals such as swine were sacrificed.

This abomination provoked a rebellion, which is described in the apocryphal books of 1st and 2nd Maccabees. Judas Maccabeus (“the hammer”) led a guerilla group that captured Jerusalem in 164, cleansing the Temple, which is commemorated by the festival of Hanukkah. His brother Simon proclaimed himself head of a Jewish state in 142, thus establishing the Hasmonean dynasty.

The supporters of the Hasmonean priesthood eventually became the party known as the Sadducees, and another group (called the Hasidim or pious ones) resisted Hellenization of the Jewish culture and eventually became the Pharisees and Essenes. These two groups struggled for domination until Rome made Palestine a province in 63.

In 146 Rome burned Carthage, massacred its inhabitants and sewed the ground with salt. That same year Rome also destroyed Corinth and conquered Greece. In 133, Asia Minor became Rome’s eighth province. However, at the same time the Roman Republic was gaining wealth and territory, it was becoming morally and politically corrupt.

Between 133 and 121 two Gracchus brothers tried to institute reforms that would return land to the plebians, but they were killed by members of the patrician senate. Civil war broke out between the General Assembly led by Marius and the Senate led by Sulla, who prevailed in 82. When Sulla stepped down in 79, a period of unrest followed until a triumvirate of consuls (Pompey, Julius Caesar and Crassus) established order in 60.

After Crassus was killed while leading his army in Asia, Pompey influenced the Senate to disband Caesar’s army in 49. Instead, Caesar led it across the Rubicon River into Italy, so Pompey fled to Greece and then to Egypt, where he was killed by Ptolemy XIII, and Caesar became dictator until he was murdered in 44 by a conspiracy that wanted to return to the republican form of government.

Caesar’s son, Octavian, and Mark Antony defeated the conspirators and ruled jointly for ten years. They proclaimed Herod of Idumea (Edom) king of Judea in 40 and sent Sosius to recapture Jerusalem for him. When it appeared as if Mark Antony intended to establish an independent empire with Cleopatra in Egypt, Octavian attacked and defeated their navies at the Battle of Actium in 30, whereupon they committed suicide. Octavian took the name Augustus and ruled as the first Roman emperor. This began a period of peace and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, which continued until the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 A.D.

When Herod died in 4 B.C., his will divided the kingdom between his sons Archelaus in Judea and Samaria, Antipas in Galilee and Perea, and Philip in the area north and east of Galilee. The stage was set for the most important event in the history of the world. It was the “fullness of time” (GL 4:4, EPH 1:10). The people God had chosen to provide the physical ancestry of Messiah were located at the geo-political center of the world. The OT canon had been completed. This area of the world had one language, koine Greek, in which to communicate the gospel. And the Pax Romana provided a favorable political climate for the growth of the Christian church.

So, in fulfillment of prophecies by Malachi (4:5) and Isaiah (40:3), John the Baptist began to preach as the last prophet of the Old Covenant (MT 3:1, LK 3:1-3, JN 1:6&15). The theme of his preaching was simply “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near”, referring to the coming of Messiah/Christ, which many view as the climax of history, because it has dominated the history of beliefs ever since. The New Testament teaches that Messiah’s vicarious atonement and ascension to heaven is the culmination of God’s plan of salvation. The Mosaic sacrificial laws were fulfilled when Jesus was slain as the sacrificial Lamb for the sins of humanity (RV 5:5-14, 13:8).

Following the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus about 30 A.D. (all dates will be A.D. unless noted otherwise) during the reign of the Roman emperor (RE, used also for Roman Empire) Tiberius, Paul the Apostle began his missionary travels about 45 during the reign of Claudius, two years after the Roman conquest of Britain. Paul taught that the Gentiles were included in God’s plan of salvation for humanity, so that all believers in Jesus as Messiah were chosen people, destined for heaven.

In China, the emperor introduced Buddhism in 58, which taught that Nirvana (release from self-consciousness) was obtained by means of enlightenment, which was aided by meditation on teachings of the Buddha, Gautama.

The RE Nero instituted the persecution of Christians, murdering St. Peter and probably St. Paul in 67, about the time Mark’s Gospel was written, which seems to have been before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70, since that event was not mentioned. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke incorporated much of Mark’s version of the life and teachings of Jesus, while the Gospel of John was a later and more theological work, emphasizing that Jesus was Messiah or Son of God.

Under RE Trajan, the empire reached its greatest extent by 116.

Justin Martyr (d.166) maintained that Plato knew the Torah and that the Logos is Christ.

Irenaeus (c.180) advocated doctrinal unity by submission to the authority of bishops and councils in opposition to heresy, such as the attempt by Valentinus to align Christianity with Platonic philosophy.

As the bishop of Rome gained a predominant position among Christian churches by 200, the New Testament (not yet canonized) teaching regarding salvation via personal faith in Jesus as Lord and obedience to his command for universal love was supplanted by a belief that stressed conformity to the interpretation and authority of Roman Catholicism (RC).

Tertullian (d.c.220) was the first person to speak of God as a Trinity. He became a follower of Montanism, which taught continuing ecstatic prophecy was equally as authoritative as the doctrines of the original apostles.

Origen (d.254) wrote De principiis, interpreting scripture allegorically and espousing universal salvation.

About 260, Plotinus wrote the Enneads, the founding document of Neo-Platonism, which taught that there is a transcendent “One” that is beyond being, although we identify it with Good and Beauty, and that existents emanate from the One in succeeding stages of declining perfection from nous (logos, reason) to world soul to human soul to matter.

About 310, Apollinarius maintained that Christ was God incarnate in opposition to Arius, who denied that Christ was eternally begotten of God.

After Trajan, the RE declined as non-Christian (pagan or heathen) Germanic tribes (Goths, Franks, Alemanni, Saxons, Thuringians, etc.) gained strength. Germanic and Norse religion was polytheistic, with Odin as chief god. Its earliest extant source document is the Eddas (probably composed about 850). During the reign of Diocletian, the RE was divided east and west in 285, until it was reunited by Constantine in 308, who ended the persecution of Christians with an edict in 313. He moved the capitol to Constantinople in 331.

In 386, Augustine decided to convert to Catholic Christianity, returning from Milan to Carthage before settling in Hippo and writing prolifically until his death in 430 what became the dominant RC theology. Especially significant were his doctrines regarding original sin, predestination, infant baptism and papal supremacy. RC theology was dominant in Christendom through the Middle Ages until the Protestant Reformation. The Christological controversy continued with Nestorius opposed to calling Mary the “mother of God” because it denied Jesus’ humanity, prompting Cyril of Alexandria to convene the Council of Ephesus in 431.

After the death of Theodosius I in 395, the RE was redivided permanently, and the western part weakened as Rome was sacked by Visigoths from Dacia (Romania) in 410 (before they established a kingdom in Gaul and Spain in 419), then in 455 by Vandals from the Baltic area (who had migrated across Europe to Spain and then across the straits of Gibraltar and eastward along the African coast as far as Sicily by 429). These migrations may have been motivated by the Huns, who migrated from Mongolia across the Volga in 372, defeating the Ostrogoths in the Ukraine and travelling as far as Gaul before attacking Italy in 452. Their religion may have been Tengriism, about which little is known until the time of the Mongols, but it revered the god of the sky or heaven.

The Roman part of the empire ended in 476, when Italy was captured by Germans led by Odoacer. Pope Felix III excommunicated Patriarch Acacius in 484, causing a schism in Christendom until 519.

Odoacer was deposed in 493 by Ostrogoths allied with the eastern or Byzantine Empire (BE). Their king, Theodoric, married a sister of Clovis in France, and his sister married the Vandal king (implying alliances or at least truces). During his reign, Boethius translated the works of Plato, Aristotle, Euclid and Ptolemy. He discussed whether universal concepts only exist as ideas, and he expounded on topics of the quadrivium—arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. He was arrested for treason and wrote The Consolation of Philosophy before being executed in 524.

In 529, the BE Justinian I closed the Athens School of Philosophy. His General Belisarius took North Africa in 533 and Italy in 535, then began a series of wars with the Sassanids in Persia in 539. Justinian sent missionaries to China in 552, who smuggled out silkworms.
That year Japanese prehistory ended and the Asuka period began when the emperor introduced Buddhism.

In 542, a plague in Constantinople spread and halved the population of Europe before ending in 594. The barbarian migrations ended about 600 with the Czechs and Slovaks in Bohemia, the Yugoslavs in Serbia, Lombards in Italy, Visigoths in Spain, and Franks in France. In that year, books were printed in China, and smallpox arrived in Europe from India.

In 610, Mohammed had a vision on Mt. Hira, then fled from Mecca to Medina in 622 (the first year of the Muslim calendar), where he dictated the Qu’ran. In 614-619, Persia conquered Damascus, Jerusalem and Egypt. About this time in China, porcelain was produced, orchestras were formed and exams used scientific textbooks. In 628, Mohammed began Islam’s expansion via forced conversion by capturing Mecca, where he taught five “pillars”: faith, prayer, alms, fasting and pilgrimage. He stressed the oneness of God and claimed to be God’s last and greatest prophet before he died in 632 (the year Buddhism became the state religion in Tibet).

In 634, the Muslim caliph Omar I took Syria and Egypt and defeated BE forces. He made Damascus the capital of his caliphate in 635. In 641, Omar captured Persia and suppressed Zoroasterianism, which taught that humans should exercise volition to have good thoughts, words and deeds, thereby participating with the god Ahura Mazda in a cosmic struggle against chaos and falsehood. Omar also closed the library and school in Alexandria.

In 643, the Muslims took Tripoli and built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. They took Cyprus in 649. In 660, the Omayyad dynasty took over the Caliphate and expanded to the Indus River by 674, while RC Christendom “fiddled” with the Monothelitism controversy (622-680), which debated whether Christ Jesus had one (human) or two (also divine) wills.

The Muslims took Armenia in 694 and Algiers in 700, then Spain in 711-716. During this time the population of China was “exploding”, and Ch’ang-an (capitol of the Han, Sui and Tang dynasties near present-day Xi’an) became the largest city in the world, followed by Constantinople.

In 715, the Muslim Empire extended from the Pyrenees to China, and in 717 tax exemption was granted to all believers. However, Charles Martel of France decisively defeated them in 732, which halted the Islamic advance from the direction of Spain.

At this time Boniface was working to eliminate heathenism northeast of the Rhine River, and the BE was threatened by Bulgarians. In 750, the Abbasids won the Muslim Caliphate and defeated China in the Battle of Samarkind in 751, where the Arabs learned how to make paper. Pepin of France made Lombardy a vassal state and granted land (the Papal State) to the popes. In 763, the Caliphate capitol was moved to Baghdad, where Indian numerals became used.

In 771, Charlemagne inherited the Frankish kingdom and annexed Saxony, Lombardy and Bavaria before being crowned Holy Roman Emperor (HRE, also “Empire”) in 800, when Pope Leo III separated RC from the BE (again, see 484). The monastery school at Tours became a university under Alcuin.

Meanwhile, Vikings or Norsemen attacked Britain, Ireland and Germany, and the Arabs experienced a golden scientific age. In 826, the king of Denmark converted to RC, opening the door for its spread to Scandinavia, while the Muslims took Crete and attacked Sardinia and Sicily.

In 843, the Treaty of Verdun divided the Frankish Empire into French, German and Italian dynasties. The head of the French palace school was the Irishman, Johannes Erigena, who wrote The Divisions of Nature. He was a Neo-Platonist, who translated the writings of Dionysius, revived the nominalist (universals) debate and advocated universal salvation and process theology.

The Muslims sacked Rome in 846. In 850, Norsemen took Kiev. They discovered Iceland in 861 and attacked Constantinople via the Black Sea in 865 (and again in 904 and 941). Cyril invented a Slavic alphabet in Moravia in 863. By 900, the Vikings discovered Greenland, the Mayas in Mexico migrated to the Yucatan, and European hereditary fiefdoms protected by the forces of lords living in castles proliferated. In 904, the papal “pornocracy” began, and in 907 the Magyars (formerly Huns?) in Hungary defeated the Moravian empire and raided Germany and Italy. In China, a new capitol was established at Yenching (Peking) in 938.

In 951, Otto I of Germany became king of the Franks and Lombards also, and was crowned HRE in 962. The Poles converted to RC in 966. Universities were founded at Cordoba in 968 and at Cairo in 972. A Chinese encyclopedia of 1,000 volumes was compiled in 978-984. Venice and Genoa were trading centers between Europe and Asia. Eastern Catholicism was accepted by Kiev (Russia) in 988.

2 Thes 2: 10-12:
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Yes, blue G and thanks for the comment.

Although we can hope there were earthlings who sought God, the Dark or at least Dim Age extended around the world from the death of Paul and John to the printing of the Bible and Luther's reform of RC that we will come to in another 500 or so years, so stay tuned!

By 1000, RC had reached Greenland, and Judaism was strongest in Spain. The Mayan civilization was at its height, and China invented gunpowder. The Danes (see 826) deposed the English king in 1013, and they conquered Norway in 1028. The Caliphate in Cordoba was abolished in 1031, and the Seljuk Turks gained strength in Turkestan in 1042. In 1054, the schism between RC and what became Eastern Orthodoxy, due mainly to its rejection of the primacy of the Pope, became permanent (“Great”).

In 1060, Anselm of Canterbury joined Lanfranc at the Bendictine Abbey in Bec, where he wrote philosophical tracts, such as De incarnation Verbi (reconciling divine foreknowledge with human free will), and logical arguments for the existence of God, such as Proslogion (including the ontological argument: God is the first cause and greatest conceivable being). In 1062, Berengar of Tours opposed the RC doctrine of transubstantiation (the communion bread and wine becoming the physical body and blood of Christ) for being irrational.

The Danes in England were defeated by William of Normandy in 1066 (the year of Halley’s comet). Poland (see 966) took Kiev in 1067, and China nationalized agriculture in 1068. The Normans conquered Italy in 1071, and the Mesa Verde culture existed in America. The Seljuks conquered Armenia in 1064 and Syria-Palestine in 1075. HRE Henry IV tired of being twice excommunicated, so he stormed Rome and imprisoned the Pope in 1084.

El Cid took Valencia from the Muslim Moors in 1094, and Pope Urban II proclaimed the First Crusade in 1095, which took Jerusalem from the Seljuks in 1099. In 1113, the order of Knights Hospitalers was organized in order to protect a hospital for pilgrims. In 1141, Peter Abelard’s ideas were condemned by a council called by Bernard of Clairvaux. Abelard wrote Sic et Non, which utilized the dialectical method of stating pros and cons. He defined sin as bad intention, and affirmed a nominalist position (which views only individuals as existing) in the debate over universals.

About 1175, Peter Waldo began preaching poverty as the way to perfection, founding a movement that presaged the reform of Luther. About this time in Spain, Avicebron published neo-Platonist ideas, including that God can be apprehended only by intuition or mystical experience, not by reason.

In 1182, Jews were banished from France. In 1185, the order of Knights Templars was formed for the purpose of protecting pilgrims on the route from Jaffa to the Temple Mount. About 1200, Moses Maimonides, who fled from Spain to Cairo, attempted to align theology with Aristotelianism, saying that if statements in the OT contradict reason, then they should be interpreted allegorically, and identifying God as first Mover and necessary Being. His views influenced Jewish kabbalistic philosophy collected in the Zohar, by Moses de Leon.

In 1204, the Fourth Crusade captured Constantinople, and in 1209 Pope Innocent III authorized the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathar heresy in France, which effectively began the period of the Inquisition (that continued with the prohibition of Bible reading in Toulouse in 1229).

In 1214, Ghengis Khan captured Peking, then Persia in 1218. In 1215, King John signed the English Magna Carta, establishing the rule of law and certain civil rights, the same year the order of Dominicans was founded for the purpose of combating heresy, and in 1233 it was assigned to lead the Inquisition, joined later by the Franciscans.

In 1258, the Mongols under Kublai Khan capture Baghdad, and the House of Commons was established in England, where Roger Bacon advocated for the study of theology to focus on the Bible in the original languages rather on scholastic debates. His legacy also includes an interest in scientific experiments, discoveries and inventions.

In 1271, the ninth and final crusade led by Prince Edward of England was defeated by the Mamluks in Egypt. In 1273, Thomas Aquinas (a former student of Albertus Magnus) published Summa theological, which supplanted Augustinianism as the dominant RC theology. Notable doctrines included natural revelation, analogical language, and the cosmological and teleological arguments for God’s existence. In 1283, the Teutonic Order subjugated Prussia. In 1295, Marco Polo returned to Italy from China.