Scriptures New And Old

[Randy Reed 0]

What questions?These are a singularly myopic view of fundamentalism. They naively said that the rapture is only in one verse, which is true if you try to pigeon hole a verse to say it in the phrase you want, and false if you read the the Bible and see it has many different locations for end times, including Daniel, Revelations, Matthew and scattered throughout many NT books. End times discussions would be pretty sad if they all hinged on one remote verse in only one book.Today's Christians in the west are much more heavily leaning towards a pre-tribulation rapture, some hold a post-tribulation rapture, and the smart ones like me hold to a mid-tribulation rapture. But we all believe in the rapture, and the time difference can be spread over a 7 year time frame. But Christians from day one have been looking for the return of Christ, so how has that changed.?Pretending that one particular branch of Christianity was 'making' the beliefs up and the following generations were adapting it to outside influences is about as silly as possible and requires you to approach the subject with a pre-conceived notion that Christianity is a man made religion.Especially when you consider that we have the same Bible, Word for Word. So pretending that the early Christians didn't believe in the same things we believe in now shows two things;1; you guys don't have a decent understanding of what the Bible says and 2; you will allow anyone to tell you anything and you will believe it.Now the mormon faith, there you can make this case. They have evolved their religion by actually changing their doctrines AND making outright changes to their book of mormon. ( these changes were required because of 'accidents' where the supposed letter by letter translation done by Joey Smith quoted Bible chapters and verses in references 1600 years before the Bible was ever given chapters and verses ) And their doctrine was dramatically changed after the 1970's hiring of a New York ad agency to 'improve their image' which was coincidentally followed by their 'prophet' having a talk with God and changing their doctrine that when a black man becomes a mormon, he will slowly become white. Oh and no longer would slitting the throats of a mormon who converted to Christianity be the correct method to 'save them from hell'But Christianity, you might as well claim that the thinking of the middle age church in the south of France with their regionally transcribed Latin Vulgate translations was the only belief that existed for the scriptures while you ignore the entire eastern orthodox who were using more accurate Greek translations while living in Constantinople.However should you change this line of thought to the theory of evolution, you would be much more accurate, the changes from Darwin to Scopes to today are so great that you might as well join the mormon church.

1; you don't have a decent understanding of what the Bible says and 2; you will allow anyone to tell you anything and you will believe it.

[Balloon guy 158]

1; you don't have a decent understanding of what the Bible says and 2; you will allow anyone to tell you anything and you will believe it.

Well done.You took my post which pointed out the lack of cogent thought in SB's post and turned it around on me by using the exact same words.I would give you an A except that the part you bolded had nothing to do with the Bible, instead they were in relation to the book of mormon.So I am left perplexed as to what point you are making. Again.

[Randy Reed 0]

Well done.You took my post which pointed out the lack of cogent thought in SB's post and turned it around on me by using the exact same words.I would give you an A except that the part you bolded had nothing to do with the Bible, instead they were in relation to the book of mormon.So I am left perplexed as to what point you are making. Again.

you will allow anyone to tell you anything and you will believe it.

[Balloon guy 158]

you will allow anyone to tell you anything and you will believe it.

People try to tell me that in a closed system random accidents resulted in complex systems of life with symbiotic relationships to other randomly created life and I didn't believe them...

[solderz 0]

Thomas Jefferson did a decent job of this. The early cabinet all received a copy of the Jeffersonian Bible when they were sworn in.Jeffersonian Bible TextHe attempted to strip down all the supernatural elements of the bible which he felt were exaggerations and lies, and focus on the moral lesson of Jesus' teachings, which he felt were most important.

[Balloon guy 158]

Thomas Jefferson did a decent job of this. The early cabinet all received a copy of the Jeffersonian Bible when they were sworn in.Jeffersonian Bible TextHe attempted to strip down all the supernatural elements of the bible which he felt were exaggerations and lies, and focus on the moral lesson of Jesus' teachings, which he felt were most important.

Pretty arrogant of a man to claim that he 'knows' that certain things were added to the Bible so he gets to cut out anything he disagrees with.But it's also pretty arrogant to own slaves...so Jefferson was consistent

[Randy Reed 0]

[Randy Reed 0]

People try to tell me that in a closed system random accidents resulted in complex systems of life with symbiotic relationships to other randomly created life and I didn't believe them...

Okay I'll try it another way. In a closed system random accidents resulted in complex systems of life with symbiotic relationships to other randomly created life.

[Randy Reed 0]

Pretty arrogant of a man to claim that he 'knows' that certain things were added to the Bible so he gets to cut out anything he disagrees with.But it's also pretty arrogant to own slaves...so Jefferson was consistent

So you like his work with the constitution but not the bible?

[Balloon guy 158]

So you like his work with the constitution but not the bible?

No, I like his willingness to use public government buildings to hold church services that he attended while holding the office of president, but the Declaration of Independence thing left a loophole allowing woman the vote..you just can't forgive an oversight like that.

[Randy Reed 0]

No, I like his willingness to use public government buildings to hold church services that he attended while holding the office of president, but the Declaration of Independence thing left a loophole allowing woman the vote..you just can't forgive an oversight like that.

Well, yeah. good point.

[Randy Reed 0]

What questions?These are a singularly myopic view of fundamentalism. They naively said that the rapture is only in one verse, which is true if you try to pigeon hole a verse to say it in the phrase you want, and false if you read the the Bible and see it has many different locations for end times, including Daniel, Revelations, Matthew and scattered throughout many NT books. End times discussions would be pretty sad if they all hinged on one remote verse in only one book.Today's Christians in the west are much more heavily leaning towards a pre-tribulation rapture, some hold a post-tribulation rapture, and the smart ones like me hold to a mid-tribulation rapture. But we all believe in the rapture, and the time difference can be spread over a 7 year time frame. But Christians from day one have been looking for the return of Christ, so how has that changed.?

I suppose normally this is a happy topic in your church groups?

[Balloon guy 158]

I suppose normally this is a happy topic in your church groups?

I used to be pretty into end times..I would get worked up over the pre-trib post-trib mid-trib debateNow truth be told I'm more of a pan-trib.It'll all pan out

[Randy Reed 0]

I used to be pretty into end times..I would get worked up over the pre-trib post-trib mid-trib debateNow truth be told I'm more of a pan-trib.It'll all pan out

You bet your life.

[Southern Buddhist 1]

Thomas Jefferson did a decent job of this. The early cabinet all received a copy of the Jeffersonian Bible when they were sworn in.Jeffersonian Bible TextHe attempted to strip down all the supernatural elements of the bible which he felt were exaggerations and lies, and focus on the moral lesson of Jesus' teachings, which he felt were most important.

I own a copy of this (not a first edition, of course, but a reprint).Jefferson never claimed he "knew" anything special about the Bible (although he certainly was capable of reading ancient bibles in either Greek or Latin, something none of us here can do). He simply knew what he what he liked, what he didn't, and had the money and influence to share it with others.

[Southern Buddhist 1]

What questions?These are a singularly myopic view of fundamentalism. They naively said that the rapture is only in one verse, which is true if you try to pigeon hole a verse to say it in the phrase you want, and false if you read the the Bible and see it has many different locations for end times, including Daniel, Revelations, Matthew and scattered throughout many NT books. End times discussions would be pretty sad if they all hinged on one remote verse in only one book.Today's Christians in the west are much more heavily leaning towards a pre-tribulation rapture, some hold a post-tribulation rapture, and the smart ones like me hold to a mid-tribulation rapture. But we all believe in the rapture, and the time difference can be spread over a 7 year time frame. But Christians from day one have been looking for the return of Christ, so how has that changed.?Pretending that one particular branch of Christianity was 'making' the beliefs up and the following generations were adapting it to outside influences is about as silly as possible and requires you to approach the subject with a pre-conceived notion that Christianity is a man made religion.Especially when you consider that we have the same Bible, Word for Word. So pretending that the early Christians didn't believe in the same things we believe in now shows two things;1; you guys don't have a decent understanding of what the Bible says and 2; you will allow anyone to tell you anything and you will believe it.But Christianity, you might as well claim that the thinking of the middle age church in the south of France with their regionally transcribed Latin Vulgate translations was the only belief that existed for the scriptures while you ignore the entire eastern orthodox who were using more accurate Greek translations while living in Constantinople.

I wouldn't argue that Armstrong is somewhat biased against fundamentalism. However, she can (and does) heavily footnote her books with sources that literally span two millennia, and she knows the sources well. The fact is, you can look at that whole library of 2,000 years' worth of biblical exegesis, and you won't find the terms "rapture" or "dispensation" until about 150 years ago.Also, you move within one sentence from "rapture" to "end times," and it seems to me you're conflating the two. Yes, there are several different apocalyptic visions in the Bible, including especially Daniel, Matthew, and Isaiah, as you point out. But that's not precisely the same as the specific notion of "rapture," that believers will be taken alive into the sky to escape the end times. Of course Christians have been looking for the return of Christ. That isn't new, but looking for the specific event of a rapture as described by Darby is, as noted, something that does not appear in the many, many hundreds of volumes of exegesis until very recently.As for the Greek Orthodox, I'm not sure how you can simultaneously argue that there have been no differences in Christian beliefs in 2,000 years, but at the same time the Vulgate translation was unimportant because, look over here, the Greek Orthodox are doing something entirely different! And if their translations were better, then why aren't you Greek Orthodox?It's the (unsupported) assertion that "we have the same Bible, word for word," that really takes me aback. If by "we," you mean us and first-century Christians, that's just plain not true. In the first century, if you were holding a copy of "the scriptures," what you were holding was ONLY the Old Testament, and not necessarily all the books in all the same order as in the present-day OT. Based on the language, the earliest books of the NT were some of Paul's letters written around 50 CE followed by the synoptic Gospels written around 70 CE. In 50 CE, there is no way on earth you had "the same bible." Not at all. Only after Paul's death (possibly around 64 or 65 CE) were his letters considered to be written by a saint (because his martyrdom made them holy). Prior to that, they were letters from a working church leader to the congregation -- read, respected, copied, passed around, and followed, yes, but not holy scripture, any more than a letter from the Southern Baptist Convention to a local church explaining a point of doctrine would be scripture today. That's equally true for other books. The synoptic gospels would not yet be in a congregation's hands, and Revelation, ironically, was one of the very last and most controversial books accepted into the bible, because even in 300 CE there were doubts as to who had authored it.Do you think first-century Christians believed exactly the same things as modern Christians? Which ones -- liberal Catholics, Lutherans, Puritans, Holy Rollers, snake handlers, or fundamentalists of exactly your denomination? It's not that hard to find out what they believed. Many first-century books survive, those in the bible and many more outside of it. It doesn't take long to realize that they believed some very different things. Even limiting the discussion to what's in the bible, in Thessalonians, the congregation evidently didn't believe that any of them would die before the end times, and they did not know what would become of those who had. Nor, apparently, did Timothy, who visited them, know this, because he had to carry the question back to Paul to answer (in the letter that has become Thessalonians). This is where he (Paul, that is) explains that dead Christians get salvation too, something that was news to the church at Thessalonica. In Corinthians, some seem to believe that the end times have already come (!) and that they are at that moment ruling with Christ in the 1000-year reign. Paul say no, not quite. In Galatians, he is writing them to correct the idea that Christians must keep kosher and must be circumcised, even as adults if necessary. [it's in Galatians that he say even if his teaching is different from the Apostles', he is right because he has had a direct revelation from God, which is part of what led to my questions at the end of my last big post. Can direct revelation contradict previous ones? Is is happening today, and what would it take to adhere to a new one in the future?]Outside the bible, forget it -- first-century **Christian** writings claim that the God of the OT was evil and that Jesus came to save us from him; that there were 2, 12, or 30 gods; that Jesus's death was an illusion and that Simon of Cyrene was actually crucified in his place. These are all written by people who considered themselves 100% Christian. They definitely do NOT believe exactly the same things you do today.The very first history of the Christian church (or, if you like, the very first history of Christianity) was written by Eusebius. It was a ten-volume history, the last volumes appearing in 324/325 CE, and it survives today. He wrote:

If anyone will take the trouble to collect their several copies and compare them, he will discover frequent divergences; for example, Asclepiades' copies do not agree with Theodotus's ... nor do these agree with Hermophilus's copies ... it is possible to find endless discrepancies.

I know I'm fighting a losing battle, but there is a VAST amount of devout scholarship and exegesis, dating back very nearly 2,000 years. I don't understand why believers don't dive headfirst into it, unless they're afraid that knowledge will shake their faith. These are works the authors prayed over, fasted over (as Darby did his 1800 years later), and devoted their lives and their considerable educational resources to. Even as a non-believer, I find it endlessly fascinating. To make assertions about what first-century Christians thought and what scriptures they used without paying any attention to this body of work is astonishingly ahistorical.So, I hate to be snarky, but to believe that 2,000 years of biblical scholarship and exegesis means nothing shows two things:1; you don't have a decent understanding of history; and2; um, yeah. I don't really mean that -- I can't stand to be that mean-tongued.Finally, I guess these are the questions to which Speedz is referring. I'm not the boss of you, but I am genuinely interested in any answers to them. I think we may just be starting from entirely different assumptions. Maybe even too different to even have a conversation, although I hope not.

The questions raised for me are these: do fundamentalists see themselves as the only true Christians, or do they see themselves as one viewpoint neither more or less correct than any other Christian viewpoint and part of a large, varied family including Catholics, liberation theologists, and others?How do fundamentalists feel regarding the timing of revelations? Was the Christianity practiced in the first century more authentic (i.e., more correct) than that practiced today, even though those Christians held beliefs no sect holds today? Or did Darby get a new revelation from God, making an interpretation barely a hundred years old the most authentic one? Do authenticity and age have anything at all to do with each other? If a hundred-year-old revelation is truth, then isn't it entirely possible for new interpretations today to supplant it? Or is a new revelation suspect because it's new? Is the ongoing talk in Christian circles about original (i.e., first-century) beliefs really a willingness or a desire to go back to those beliefs, no matter how different they may be, or did more recent revelations/interpretations improve on those ideas?

[Balloon guy 158]

As for the Greek Orthodox, I'm not sure how you can simultaneously argue that there have been no differences in Christian beliefs in 2,000 years, but at the same time the Vulgate translation was unimportant because, look over here, the Greek Orthodox are doing something entirely different! And if their translations were better, then why aren't you Greek Orthodox?

I did not mean to imply that everything we believe has been consistent, what I meant was that the fundamentals, the core of our belief that man is sinful and needs a savior. That Christ came and paid for our sins by dying on the cross, that God accepted his propitiation and we are now free from the consequences of sin and when we shed this mortal body we will be with Christ. That message is firmly consistent. The rest of doctrine for the most part is just flavoring, not important if you believe one way or the other except in man's eyes. The rapture, eating fish on Friday, woman not being allowed to teach a man etc, all things that hold very little weight in the scheme of things.

It's the (unsupported) assertion that "we have the same Bible, word for word," that really takes me aback. If by "we," you mean us and first-century Christians, that's just plain not true. In the first century, if you were holding a copy of "the scriptures," what you were holding was ONLY the Old Testament, and not necessarily all the books in all the same order as in the present-day OT. Based on the language, the earliest books of the NT were some of Paul's letters written around 50 CE followed by the synoptic Gospels written around 70 CE. In 50 CE, there is no way on earth you had "the same bible." Not at all. Only after Paul's death (possibly around 64 or 65 CE) were his letters considered to be written by a saint (because his martyrdom made them holy). Prior to that, they were letters from a working church leader to the congregation -- read, respected, copied, passed around, and followed, yes, but not holy scripture, any more than a letter from the Southern Baptist Convention to a local church explaining a point of doctrine would be scripture today. That's equally true for other books. The synoptic gospels would not yet be in a congregation's hands, and Revelation, ironically, was one of the very last and most controversial books accepted into the bible, because even in 300 CE there were doubts as to who had authored it.

I guess I was speaking over your shoulder there and allowed this slight faux pas to come through, of course the Bible was not the same Bible before it was written. Sorry if I left that impression. But you are slightly of on the dates, although I would contend that they were written a decade earlier than you feel, while the rest of this motley crew is foolish enough to believe that they were written hundreds of years later if you can believe that...

Do you think first-century Christians believed exactly the same things as modern Christians? Which ones -- liberal Catholics, Lutherans, Puritans, Holy Rollers, snake handlers, or fundamentalists of exactly your denomination? It's not that hard to find out what they believed. Many first-century books survive, those in the bible and many more outside of it. It doesn't take long to realize that they believed some very different things. Even limiting the discussion to what's in the bible, in Thessalonians, the congregation evidently didn't believe that any of them would die before the end times, and they did not know what would become of those who had. Nor, apparently, did Timothy, who visited them, know this, because he had to carry the question back to Paul to answer (in the letter that has become Thessalonians). This is where he (Paul, that is) explains that dead Christians get salvation too, something that was news to the church at Thessalonica. In Corinthians, some seem to believe that the end times have already come (!) and that they are at that moment ruling with Christ in the 1000-year reign. Paul say no, not quite. In Galatians, he is writing them to correct the idea that Christians must keep kosher and must be circumcised, even as adults if necessary. [it's in Galatians that he say even if his teaching is different from the Apostles', he is right because he has had a direct revelation from God, which is part of what led to my questions at the end of my last big post. Can direct revelation contradict previous ones? Is is happening today, and what would it take to adhere to a new one in the future?]

Well we have had a few millennium without any new direct revelations so I would argue that the question is moot..

Outside the bible, forget it -- first-century **Christian** writings claim that the God of the OT was evil and that Jesus came to save us from him; that there were 2, 12, or 30 gods; that Jesus's death was an illusion and that Simon of Cyrene was actually crucified in his place. These are all written by people who considered themselves 100% Christian. They definitely do NOT believe exactly the same things you do today.The very first history of the Christian church (or, if you like, the very first history of Christianity) was written by Eusebius. It was a ten-volume history, the last volumes appearing in 324/325 CE, and it survives today. He wrote:

Claiming you are a Christian while denying it's tenants does not allow you to hold on to the claim of being a Christian. Why should I have to answer for a man 1950 years ago who said: "I'm a Christian and everything that Christ said is wrong"?And why should anyone consider anything he says?When man gets hold of anything, he inserts his own selfish desires and influences, which is why God gave us His inspired Word to always compare anything man says too to confirm it's authenticity. If you make the claim that you are a spokeswoman for God, and then come out and say that God did not send His son to die for our sins, then I can immediately discount you and anything you say. Why do you want to allow such authority to be attributed to anyone who said anything just because they said it 1900 years ago?

I know I'm fighting a losing battle, but there is a VAST amount of devout scholarship and exegesis, dating back very nearly 2,000 years. I don't understand why believers don't dive headfirst into it, unless they're afraid that knowledge will shake their faith. These are works the authors prayed over, fasted over (as Darby did his 1800 years later), and devoted their lives and their considerable educational resources to. Even as a non-believer, I find it endlessly fascinating. To make assertions about what first-century Christians thought and what scriptures they used without paying any attention to this body of work is astonishingly ahistorical.So, I hate to be snarky, but to believe that 2,000 years of biblical scholarship and exegesis means nothing shows two things:1; you don't have a decent understanding of history; and2; um, yeah. I don't really mean that -- I can't stand to be that mean-tongued.

I do not fear looking at anything, I enjoy looking into the history of the faith, the book of Acts, Fox's book of Martyrs ect. But this really has the simplest parallels to Scott Brown and his silly little Divinci Code book. The swoon theory was shown to be a stupid theory every couple of decades when someone brings it up thinking that they have 'discovered some new insight' and just because Scott Brown made a movie about it doesn't change the fact that his whole theory has been laughed at for centuries by almost everyone. This book trying to 'shed light' into how the doctrine of the Christian faith isn't new, nor is it really insightful. I can tell you of many false directions some cults made in the early church, that doesn't mean that THE church was swerving left and right trying to find a doctrine that 'worked'. It only means that man tried to screw up the easiest religion in the world. Now what is more likely to be true, man is capable of screwing up a good thing, or man by committee came up with the Sermon on the Mount?

Finally, I guess these are the questions to which Speedz is referring. I'm not the boss of you, but I am genuinely interested in any answers to them. I think we may just be starting from entirely different assumptions. Maybe even too different to even have a conversation, although I hope not.

If speedz asked it, it is probably wrong.But who doesn't like you enough to give you enough to respect to converse with you?Besides crow, but he only hates you because you don't tow the party line that the Bible was written hundreds of years after Christ. And he didn't really notice that until I just showed him.

[Balloon guy 158]

The questions raised for me are these: do fundamentalists see themselves as the only true Christians, or do they see themselves as one viewpoint neither more or less correct than any other Christian viewpoint and part of a large, varied family including Catholics, liberation theologists, and others?

Are you the same American as the southern cracker who hates blacks? As the New England snob who hates poor people? and the Chicago politician who hates honest voting? You can have many disagreements yet when push comes to shove you would grab your M-16 and defend this great country against those stinking commie %!@##**@%#@ Canadians in a heart beat should they every try anything...am I right?

How do fundamentalists feel regarding the timing of revelations?

I believe that Daniel and Matthew and Revelations clearly show a progression that will result in our seeing the anti-Christ ( Obama? maybe? )rise to power, then see the frist half of the tribulation when man will punish man. Then we will be raptured to avoid the second half of the tribulation when God showers His wrath on mankind. I am in the minority, and I attend church freely with these wrong as two left feet Christians who foolishly believe that God will rapture us out before the beginning of the tribulation. I also attend church with people who like Celine Dion and some who even listen to ABBA. So far their apostasy has not driven me to find a new church yet.

Was the Christianity practiced in the first century more authentic (i.e., more correct) than that practiced today, even though those Christians held beliefs no sect holds today?

Please to explain which beliefs that they held that we don't. Other than the more in line with socialist communal living agreements they held I mean.

Or did Darby get a new revelation from God, making an interpretation barely a hundred years old the most authentic one?

Pretty sure Darby got his revelation from the Little People, making him hardly a worthy new 'saint'.

Do authenticity and age have anything at all to do with each other? If a hundred-year-old revelation is truth, then isn't it entirely possible for new interpretations today to supplant it? Or is a new revelation suspect because it's new? Is the ongoing talk in Christian circles about original (i.e., first-century) beliefs really a willingness or a desire to go back to those beliefs, no matter how different they may be, or did more recent revelations/interpretations improve on those ideas?

In the first century you had a unique situation. The first century church was coming off of a 4,000 year old religion of Judaism. The religion that God chose to reveal Himself to the world through. Now God fulfills that 4,000 year old way of life and teaches them a new way. It is understandable that the first century Jews who converted were struggling with the changes. If I move to Costa Rica, the new culture would cause me to have some issues, try taking a Jew and making him a Christian under a tyrannical Roman rule. They also had false beliefs, that God was going to send a Savior to rid them of the Romans and make them the rulers of the world. This was a false belief that many held onto. Accepting the change that God sees things different than we do made for some difficult adjustments.Now throw in a whole group of gentiles, with all their beliefs, and their prejudices against the Jews which gave them false understandings ( which explains why Nero used the notion that Christians ate the bodies and drank the blood of babies in their church services)So yes the Apostles sent letters, or traveled themselves to remote places to teach the truth. Long distances allowed for man's influences to creep in, or to surplant the teachings of the men God had chosen to teach God's word, and eventually the Bible was codified to stop this reoccurring problem of man trying to improve on God's work or pretending that they had 'special revelation'.As such no I do not think we will get any new revelations, because the entire problem of sin has been cured, through the sacrificed blood of Christ.

[Randy Reed 0]

Are you the same American as the southern cracker who hates blacks? As the New England snob who hates poor people? and the Chicago politician who hates honest voting? You can have many disagreements yet when push comes to shove you would grab your M-16 and defend this great country against those stinking commie %!@##**@%#@ Canadians in a heart beat should they every try anything...am I right?I believe that Daniel and Matthew and Revelations clearly show a progression that will result in our seeing the anti-Christ ( Obama? maybe? )rise to power, then see the frist half of the tribulation when man will punish man. Then we will be raptured to avoid the second half of the tribulation when God showers His wrath on mankind. I am in the minority, and I attend church freely with these wrong as two left feet Christians who foolishly believe that God will rapture us out before the beginning of the tribulation. I also attend church with people who like Celine Dion and some who even listen to ABBA. So far their apostasy has not driven me to find a new church yet. Please to explain which beliefs that they held that we don't. Other than the more in line with socialist communal living agreements they held I mean.Pretty sure Darby got his revelation from the Little People, making him hardly a worthy new 'saint'.In the first century you had a unique situation. The first century church was coming off of a 4,000 year old religion of Judaism. The religion that God chose to reveal Himself to the world through. Now God fulfills that 4,000 year old way of life and teaches them a new way. It is understandable that the first century Jews who converted were struggling with the changes. If I move to Costa Rica, the new culture would cause me to have some issues, try taking a Jew and making him a Christian under a tyrannical Roman rule. They also had false beliefs, that God was going to send a Savior to rid them of the Romans and make them the rulers of the world. This was a false belief that many held onto. Accepting the change that God sees things different than we do made for some difficult adjustments.Now throw in a whole group of gentiles, with all their beliefs, and their prejudices against the Jews which gave them false understandings ( which explains why Nero used the notion that Christians ate the bodies and drank the blood of babies in their church services)So yes the Apostles sent letters, or traveled themselves to remote places to teach the truth. Long distances allowed for man's influences to creep in, or to surplant the teachings of the men God had chosen to teach God's word, and eventually the Bible was codified to stop this reoccurring problem of man trying to improve on God's work or pretending that they had 'special revelation'.As such no I do not think we will get any new revelations, because the entire problem of sin has been cured, through the sacrificed blood of Christ.

who codified it? I hope to God it wasn't man.

[Balloon guy 158]

who codified it? I hope to God it wasn't man.

OhYea it was man...in the sense that they put together the books and letters that had enough authority to justify their being codified. They did this more to stop the wacko nut cases who were claiming special revelation that allowed them to ignore the clear teachings of Christ and gave them the ability usually to sleep with as many women as they wanted. This is a common trait of a cult.

[Randy Reed 0]

OhYea it was man...in the sense that they put together the books and letters that had enough authority to justify their being codified. They did this more to stop the wacko nut cases who were claiming special revelation that allowed them to ignore the clear teachings of Christ and gave them the ability usually to sleep with as many women as they wanted. This is a common trait of a cult.

so how do you know it wasn't the infidels that refused to sleep with hordes of women that were the ones that got it right? Maybe the devil influenced them to codify the wrong text. How would you know?

[Balloon guy 158]

so how do you know it wasn't the infidels that refused to sleep with hordes of women that were the ones that got it right? Maybe the devil influenced them to codify the wrong text. How would you know?

20 minutes of effort and a smattering of common sense.

[BaseJester 1]

They did this more to stop the wacko nut cases who were claiming special revelation that allowed them to ignore the clear teachings of Christ and gave them the ability usually to sleep with as many women as they wanted. This is a common trait of a cult.

I realize you have a specific example or citation in mind, but you are grossly misrepresenting gnosticism in general.

[Randy Reed 0]

I realize you have a specific example or citation in mind, but you are grossly misrepresenting gnosticism in general.

Umm, making up his own rules as he goes along has never stopped him before, besides, he's more fun that way.

[Randy Reed 0]

Huh, I just went to see what was on the tube and just starting are 3 shows that basically blow the bible out of the water.The Planets- How are solar system and planets were formed.How the earth was made- This particular episode features the Rocky Mountains.Armegedon- Absolute proof the bible was wrong because Bruce Willis blows up an asteroid and saves mankind.