According to Christians, Jesus is the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent Creator and Lord of the universe. So why does Jesus need Bible scholars, theologians, and apologists? I just don’t get it. If I or any other person on the planet has a question or doubt about the claims within the Christian holy book, the Bible, why can’t we simply ask Jesus? Why bother asking fallible mortals such as scholars, theologians, and apologists???? If omniscient, omnipresent Lord Jesus exists, isn’t he the ultimate search engine? Who needs Google?
If Jesus is omnipresent, then he is sitting right next to me on the sofa as I type these very words. So why can’t I turn to Lord Jesus and ask him any question on my mind and get an immediate answer? What about, “Hey Lord Jesus, how did you get out of your sealed tomb? After regenerating your bloated, putrefying corpse, did you pop out of sight after wiggling your nose like Bewitched? Or, did you ask the angel Gabriel to beam you up to a mother ship hovering in the skies above Jerusalem like Captain Kirk would say to Scottie? No, you probably just “said the words and it was so”, right? No nose twitching or transporter beams for Lord Jesus!
Hey Lord Jesus, since you are sitting right next to me, would it be too much trouble for you to pop into view for a couple of minutes to have a brief chat? It would do “miracles” in convincing me of the historicity of the Resurrection and every other far-fetched fantastical claim in the Bible. Just five minutes is all I ask. If you do so, I have no doubt that I will become a believer. So what do you say, Jesus?
(Silence…)
(Crickets chirping…)
Oh, that’s right…you don’t like being “tested”, do you? Why is that, Jesus? During your human lifetime you repeatedly used your magical powers to convince people of your identity. So why not now? Why not now, Jesus!
Could it possibly be because…you’re dead?
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End of post.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
Or shown up at during the Reformation- “Ok, you guys are right, and you other guys are wrong.” Or told the early church to ignore Paul, or James that he should accept and agree with Paul… etc.
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Put up or shut up, Jesus…if you are alive.
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The author asked the fallacious question as to why it can’t turn to Jesus on the sofa, ask a question and get an immediate answer.
That’s the fallacy of begging the question. The most basic fallacies in these kinds of silly articles are pathetically typical on account of their having originated from writers who don’t understand basic fallacies, and posters who are equally ignorant.
Post something reasonable and rational, and maybe you will have answered your own questions.
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SMJR: The author asked the fallacious question as to why it can’t turn to Jesus on the sofa, ask a question and get an immediate answer. That’s the fallacy of begging the question.””
I don’t follow your logic. Here is the definition of Begging the Question Fallacy: The fallacy of begging the question occurs when an argument’s premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. In other words, you assume without proof the stand/position, or a significant part of the stand, that is in question. Begging the question is also called arguing in a circle.
I honestly don’t think you have any clue what you are saying. It is easy to accuse someone of a fallacious argument, but demonstrating that a fallacious argument has been made takes some work. Do the work, SMJR, or this will be the last of your comments that I approve and post.
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Not much discussion can be had when you question anything and everything another has said, even when the question itself is rooted in condescending disregard for what can be known in what I had written, very much akin to a fellow student asking “why” to every answer given, as if perpetual, never-ending stream of “why” keeps it all locked into a circular discussion going nowhere.
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Can you explain exactly how the OP is begging the question? If not, we’re gonna need to give your reply its own fallacy name.
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“Oh, that’s right…you don’t like being “tested”, do you?”
God has no problem being tested! Don’t forget the contest between Elijah and the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18:16–40).
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Test City (Sung to the tune of Jan and Dean “Surf City.”
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There’s a reason Gary’s blog is called Escaping Fundamentalism. He’s not escaping from real Christianity and the real Jesus so much as a ridiculous cartoon parody of them which he can’t tell from the real thing. If orthodox Christianity was really anything like he describes, I’d try to escape myself.
Pax.
Lee.
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And what, pray tell, is ‘real’ Christianity? Would it be the kind you yourself believe in, Lee (and therefore by definition the ‘real’ sort)?
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The type of Christianity Gary is fleeing from is a cartoon caricature of the orthodox, historic faith.
This caricature of Christianity assumes things such as:
There has always been a war between Christian faith and science, thus that most Christians are anti-science.
Christianity is anti-intellectual, demanding that people “check their brains at the door,” or as Mark Twain described it, being religious necessarily involves “believing something you know ain’t so.” Thus most Christians are weak-minded and gullible (a favorite trope of Gary’s).
That all or most Christians interpret Genesis chapters 1-3 in a wooden, literalistic fashion to argue for a literal six day creation.
All or most Christians do not believe in evolution.
That all or most Christians are premillennialists of the Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHay/Jerry Jenkins, John Hagee type and we all believe Revelation was/is an ancient code prophesying the literal end of the space-time universe.
That the primary reason most adults convert to Christianity is because their mothers or other family members are/were Christian (another favorite trope with Gary).
That Christianity teaches that matter = bad and spirit = good (dualism). Thus that all or most Christians believe the chief tenet of Christianity is “going to heaven when you die” thus avoiding hell, with heaven (a spiritual realm with gold streets, somewhere “up there”) and hell (a literal lake of fire, somewhere “down there”) both being literal destinations.
That all Christians believe all non-Christians are going to hell.
That Christianity teaches that sex is evil.
That all Christians believe in the total inerrancy of the Bible.
That all Protestants believe all Catholic/Orthodox are damned and vice-versa.
These are just a few I thought of off the top of my head.
Pax.
Lee.
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The founder of modern Christianity, Paul of Tarsus, said this about the wisdom of the world:
For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.
Pauline Christians such as yourself have always placed religious dogma above worldly wisdom (science and reason). That is why the religious leaders of Copernicus day, Catholic and Protestant, scoffed at his scientific research regarding Heliocentricity as it contradicted the dogmas of the Church. To paraphrase Martin Luther:
Reason and science are the Devil’s whores.
I reject as superstitious and ignorant any form of religious that places dogma above evidence.
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GARY: I reject as superstitious and ignorant any form of religious that places dogma above evidence.
LEE: Then we’re agreed. So do I!
GARY: Pauline Christians such as yourself have always placed religious dogma above worldly wisdom (science and reason).
LEE: Not so, Gary. You do love to generalize, don’t you? I could name a hundred “Pauline Christians” who are/were scientists just off the top of my head. I have a good friend who’s member of my church who’s also a physicist and works for an aerospace corporation in Huntsville, AL. John really is a rocket scientist.
The scientific revolution of the 17th c. was only possible because of the Christian Middle Ages in Western Europe laying all of the groundwork.
And have you actually read the Book of Acts? Because Paul reasoned with several Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens in Acts 17, actually quoting two Greek philosophers–Epimenedes and Eratus–in verse 28 to make a point.
GARY: That is why the religious leaders of Copernicus day, Catholic and Protestant, scoffed at his scientific research regarding Heliocentricity as it contradicted the dogmas of the Church.
LEE: Wrong again, Gary. The Church rejected heliocentrism because it contradicted the wisdom of the ancients like Aristotle and seemed at odds with the observable data.
Galileo ran afoul of the Church when he insulted the Pope (who until that time was on his side), thus suffered a comfortable house-arrest, from where his second book was published with no reprisals from Rome at all.
GARY: To paraphrase Martin Luther:
Reason and science are the Devil’s whores
LEE: Once again you ignore the context of a quotation you cite. The actual context of Luther’s statement can bee seen if you look carefully: Luther wasn’t railing against science and reason but against the use of science and reason divorced from faith and scripture. Christian intellectual Nancy Pearcey explains on pp. 80-81 of her book Total Truth:
“One of the driving motives of the Reformers was to overcome this medieval dualism and recover the unity of life and knowledge under the authority of God’s Word. They argued that the medieval scholastics had accommodated far too much to pagan philosophers such as Aristotle, and they urged a more critical attitude toward the alleged truths of reason arrived at apart from divine revelation.”
Specifically Luther was attempting to rid the church of Aristotelian assumptions transmitted through Thomistic theology. So Luther was hardly against science and reason.
Pax.
Lee.
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A superstition with a respectable scientific veneer is still a superstition.
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GARY: A superstition with a respectable scientific veneer is still a superstition.
LEE: This is the silly caricature I keep talking about. It isn’t a “superstition,” less still one with only a “scientific veneer.” When Gary Dobbs says it’s going to rain Monday Christians don’t hang him as a witch, we grab our umbrellas. One couple I know from my church sent their kids to Space Camp and acted as chaperones.
And I’ve told you I have good friends who are lifelong Christians as well as physicists who work for aerospace corporations.
So this whole spiel about how Christians are ignorant and superstitious is just silly. You only keep saying it because you don’t have any real substantive arguments to make.
Pax.
Lee.
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-anyone who believes that a human virgin was impregnated by a ghost is silly and superstitious.
-anyone who believes that a human being can walk on water is silly and superstitious.
-anyone who believes that leprosy can be healed by having a “miracle worker” say some hocus pocus over the person is silly and superstitious.
-anyone who believes that blindness can be healed by rubbing some spit in a blind person’s eyes is silly and superstitious.
-anyone who believes that dead people can be shaken alive out of their graves by an earthquake is silly and superstitious.
-anyone who believes that a first century Jewish peace-nik is our creator and the ruler of the cosmos is silly and superstitious.
Just because you believe in the Law of Gravity and the Laws of Thermodynamics does not make your worldview any more respectable. Your worldview is still silly and superstitious.
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GARY: Just because you believe in the Law of Gravity and the Laws of Thermodynamics does not make your worldview any more respectable. Your worldview is still silly and superstitious.
LEE: And that’s the great thing about opinions–everybody has one, just like noses.
Pax.
Lee.
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Really? That is your response? Not very rational or logical. Sounds very defensive.
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GARY: Really? That is your response? Not very rational or logical. Sounds very defensive.
LEE: Not at all. You have just expressed your opinion, one that I and millions of others worldwide do not happen to share.
Pax.
Lee.
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Please kindly share with us the details of your conversion, Lee.
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Of course it is. But that’s a far cry from proving that belief in the supernatural is irrational.
Unless I misunderstand you, your argument seems to be that there can never, under any circumstance be a reason to take seriously a supernatural claim. I disagree with that.
Pax.
Lee.
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I have never said that we should never take seriously any supernatural claim. What I do say is that we should not give any supernatural claim even a minute of our time unless the person/persons making that particular supernatural claim can provide overwhelming evidence of its historicity. There are millions upon millions of supernatural claims in our world. No one has the time to thoroughly investigate all these supernatural claims.
Your next response will probably be that we should investigate Christianity’s supernatural claims because so many people on the planet believe them to be true. No. This is a logical fallacy. Just because a lot of people in one particular culture (the Christian West) believes that a supernatural claim within that culture is true is not sufficient reason to spend a lot of time investigating that claim.
Now, if the overwhelming majority of scientists and other experts in all cultures and all countries of the industrialized, civilized world claimed that there is sufficient evidence to investigate a particular supernatural claim, then THAT claim is probably worth spending your time investigating. You can dismiss all the other claims with a dismissive wave of the hand and chuckle.
If you can provide one supernatural claim about which the overwhelming majority of scientists, experts, and university educated people in all cultures and all countries believe to be true, then I will be happy to investigate the evidence for that ONE claim. Do you have such a claim???
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BILL: This implies that Gary would have been less likely to deconvert if he had been practicing the orthodox, historic faith, whatever that is. Is this really what you think? In your view, which denomination or group is following “true Christianity”?
LEE: I don’t know, Gary will have to answer that. What I can say is that many of the beliefs Gary insists all or most Christians hold (several of which I noted above) we don’t actually hold and never have. Gary seems to think that all or most Christians (past and present) are uneducated, illiterate, weak-minded, deluded people (all descriptors he’s used), and that such is a prerequisite of belief. If it were, I’d have left 30 years ago. Probably 70% of the Christians I know have professional college degrees.
So he’s continually objecting to ideas few people hold and labelling large numbers of people with a very broad, extremely inaccurate, brush.
Gary’s pronouncements on what Christians do and believe is akin to someone claiming to be an expert on the Middle Ages after seeing the 2001 Heath Ledger film A Knight’s Tale.
Pax.
Lee.
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You seem to have insight into what constitutes the orthodox, historic faith, but said nothing about that in your answer. Again, which denomination or group is following the orthodox, historic faith?
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“The type of Christianity Gary is fleeing from is a cartoon caricature of the orthodox, historic faith.”
This implies that Gary would have been less likely to deconvert if he had been practicing the orthodox, historic faith, whatever that is. Is this really what you think? In your view, which denomination or group is following “true Christianity”?
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So if this is the caricature of Christianity (which isn’t actually what Gary rails against), then what is the ‘true’ version that you profess? Does it involve belief in the resurrection of the corpse of a first century peasant preacher who turned out to be God in some form?
This seems to me to be Gary’s principal objection to Christianity, yet you fail to mention it.
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LEE: Neil, Gary and I are old sparring partners. Over the past five years I’ve answered his objections to Jesus’ resurrection probably a hundred times in a dozen different threads in two forums (his and Dr. Joel Anderson’s). Which remains a running theme with him. But I can’t help it if the answers don’t satisfy him (they have satisfied many other people over the centuries). The kind of proof he requires before he’ll believe the resurrection (like, say, a videotape of the resurrection) doesn’t exist for much of the events in history, less still the resurrection. Yet because it is the resurrection, the evidentiary standard is thus ten times what it would be for any other alleged historical event, which to me is unreasonable. Besides which, even if he had a videotape purporting to document the resurrection his prior commitment to materialism would force him to argue the videotape was faked.
And yeah, Gary kinda does rail against a cartoon version of Christianity, such as when he calls it a “superstition with a scientific veneer. and accuses intellectuals like former Human Genome Director Dr. Francis Collins who convert of doing so primarily for emotional reasons–despite what Dr. Collins specifically writes in his own spiritual autobiography about being convinced via reason and intellectual arguments, esp. from CS Lewis).
Pax.
Lee.
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But I can’t help it if the answers don’t satisfy him (they have satisfied many other people over the centuries).
Logical fallacy. Billions of people have believed the supernatural claims of the Koran, Book of Mormon, and the Hindu Scriptures. The teachings in these books and those in the Bible are often completely exclusionary. Therefore only one (or none) can be true. So just because billions of people are satisfied with a supernatural claim is not good evidence that it is true.
The kind of proof he requires before he’ll believe the resurrection (like, say, a videotape of the resurrection) doesn’t exist for much of the events in history, less still the resurrection. Yet because it is the resurrection, the evidentiary standard is thus ten times what it would be for any other alleged historical event, which to me is unreasonable.
I demand the same quality of evidence for the alleged resurrection of Jesus that I do for the supernatural claims of Islam, Mormonism and Hinduism. I am fair and objective. It is Lee and Christians like him who give preferential treatment to Christian supernatural claims and hand-wave away those of other belief systems.
And yeah, Gary kinda does rail against a cartoon version of Christianity, such as when he calls it a “superstition with a scientific veneer. and accuses intellectuals like former Human Genome Director Dr. Francis Collins who convert of doing so primarily for emotional reasons–despite what Dr. Collins specifically writes in his own spiritual autobiography about being convinced via reason and intellectual arguments, esp. from CS Lewis).
Dear Lee: Please tell us about the circumstances of your conversion to Christianity. How old were you? What event triggered your conversion? How much study did you do of corpse reanimation prior to believing that a first century corpse is your Eternal Lord and Master and Ruler of the Cosmos?
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When I remind you that converts like Oxford molecular biophysicist Rev. Dr. Alister McGrath and former Human Genome Dir. Dr. Francis Collins have studied the intellectual evidence, which they then present at some length in their books chronicling their conversions, you just slough it off and accuse them of converting due to some kind of emotional crisis. You refuse to take their own accounts of their engagements with the evidence at all seriously. How is this open-minded?
You cannot call Alister McGrath or Francis Collins either “deluded” or “weak-minded”; well, you can and probably will, but you shouldn’t. What you should do is read their books carefully (their books, not the short You-Tube clips), think about them critically and seriously, then respond in kind. But at this point I’m honestly not sure you could handle that. You’ve been treating theists as if we were all hyper-emotional twelve-year-olds for so long that you’ve actually started to believe it.
People generally engage in such evasive maneuvers because they’re afraid to seriously examine such evidence. That or too arrogant to admit they could learn anything from anybody else.
You’re “fair and objective”? I ‘m sorry but I just don’t see it. You repeatedly evidence an almost paranoid skepticism which demands absolute proof for anything smacking of the supernatural, which you know full-well is not possible. You repeatedly mistake this paranoid skepticism for critical thinking.
As for my conversion, I’ve shared that story three or four times in as many threads over the past two or three months. I admitted that I had not actually given much thought (as a 12 year-old) to the intellectual underpinnings of the faith, which I have done, in the 40 years since then.
Pax.
Lee.
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So you believed that a first century resurrected corpse is your eternal master and lord at the age of twelve.
Is that rational, Lee?
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There are many very intelligent Muslim scientists, such as Ahmed Zewail who won a Nobel Prize in chemistry, who if they believe the teachings of their Faith, all believe that a man in the seventh century flew over Jerusalem on a winged horse.
List of prominent Muslim scientists:
https://www.bahath.co/muslim-scientists/tag/ahmed+zewail
Is the thinking of these very intelligent Muslim scientists, on this one issue, rational to you, Lee?
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Gary, I don’t know how many Muslim scientists also practice their faith; I do know that it’s possible to be a scientist and a person of faith at the same time. I know this partly because I have read the conversion stories of several scientists who converted to Christianity from atheism through a study of the evidence.
My objection to Mohammed has nothing to do with whether a guy could actually fly over Jerusalem on a horse; if miracles are possible, as both our faiths affirm, whether it’s possible to fly over a city on a horse is not really that important.
My objections to Mohammed are objections, such as, the fact that, unlike Jesus, there’s no historical record of Mohammed outside Muslim sources from several hundred years after the Koran was compiled; the Koran shows evidence of being influenced by 6th c. Syrian Christian lectionaries, Gnostic theologies, etc. Much like Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon, Mohammed or whoever compiled the Koran borrowed liberally from other (Jewish, Christian and Christian heresies) sources.
Pax.
Lee.
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Once again, you are not addressing the issue in contention. Let me try to make it more simple: Is it possible for very intelligent, very educated, normally very rational people to hold irrational views on some issues?
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GARY: I have never said that we should never take seriously any supernatural claim. What I do say is that we should not give any supernatural claim even a minute of our time unless the person/persons making that particular supernatural claim can provide overwhelming evidence of its historicity.
LEE: Okay, I realized I had misstated your view after I hit the “post” button.
I suppose it depends upon how one defines “overwhelming evidence.” It still sounds like you’re demanding a video-tape recording or a signed, notarized affidavit by 500 reliable witnesses describing what they’d just witnessed. In other words, you’re demanding a 21st century-level of evidence for a 1st century AD event.
That kind of documentary evidence is rare to say the least, for many, indeed most historical, events, let alone historical events which are also supernatural events.
I still don’t see why the evidentiary bar should be any higher for a miracle than for a more “mundane,” non-miraculous historical event. I think that it’s only because you’re a “weak deist” leaning towards materialism that causes you to raise the bar and suddenly move the goalposts.
At the end of the day, science can’t prove whether miracles are possible or not. As I keep saying, it ultimately comes down to a person’s worldview. If your worldview allows for the possibly of resurrection, then believing it happened to Jesus isn’t that much of a stretch.
NT Wright states the case as well as anyone when he said in an interview:
“The historian has to offer a plausible hypothesis of why the disciples used the language of resurrection. My hypothesis is that there were two things: an empty tomb and sightings of Jesus. An empty tomb by itself doesn’t mean that much, nor do visions — many people have had visions, particularly after somebody they love has just died. Given the accounts of the empty tomb and of the sightings, however, I think the historian is faced with two parts of an arch with the piece in the middle — the resurrection — missing. The question is: Are these just two isolated phenomena?
“The historian cannot prove the resurrection in the same way that one can prove that Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD. But I think the historian can say: Here are the plausible explanations. And there is an extreme implausibility of virtually all the rival suggestions, such as the one that James, the brother of the Lord, was walking around in the garden at the same time, and because he looked rather like Jesus, the women saw him in the half light. That story is not going to last more than an hour or two.”
I (and Wright as well), would say that the cumulative, circumstantial evidence for Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is very impressive, in fact actually more impressive than the evidence for many other historical figures one could name whose life and deeds no one seriously questions.
Pax.
Lee.
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Let’s see if my evidentiary standard is any higher than yours: Why do you reject the supernatural claims of Mormonism. Be brief, please.
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When I ask you to be brief, I dont need to hear about all of Joseph Smith’s faults. The Judeo-Christian God seems to enjoy selecting leaders with character flaws, criminal records, adulterers, and even murderers. So telling me that you reject Mormonism’s supernatural claims because their leader was a lying scumbag is not going to fly with me.
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GARY: Abraham: allowed his wife to be raped to protect his own ass. 2. Isaac: pedophile. 3. Jacob: inheritance embezzlement 4. Moses: murder, genocide. 5. Saul: genocide 6. David: murder, adultery. 7. Peter: assault with a deadly weapon; serial liar 8. Paul of Tarsus: murder
LEE: Gary, in the Bible is doesn’t mean ought. In other words, just because the Bible reports or describes certain behavior doesn’t the Bible endorses such behavior.
The point with all of these biblical characters is that God bothered to get his hands dirty using fallible, broken, dishonest, screwed-up human beings. The people described in scripture aren’t presented as “super-saints.” They’re as messed up (or more so) than any of us. If God could achieve his purposes through these broken people (healing them and making them whole in the process) that says a lot about what he can do through me, or anyone else.
Pax.
Lee.
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Nice dodge.
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So you agree that it is possible that God used similar “fallible, broken, dishonest, screwed up” human beings when he gave new revelations to Mohammad and Joseph Smith? Thank you for that admission.
So now that we have settled that, why don’t you believe the Mormon supernatural claims? Their evidence is better. They have signed affidavits from their eyewitnesses. No one disputes the identity of the Mormon eyewitnesses, unlike the disputed authorship of the eyewitness testimony (the Gospels) for Christianity. Why are you holding Mormon supernatural claims to a higher standard than you do Christian supernatural claims?
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GARY: Let’s see if my evidentiary standard is any higher than yours: Why do you reject the supernatural claims of Mormonism. Be brief, please.
LEE: Primarily because while the Book of Mormon claims to be a record of the monotheistic Judaeo-Christian God’s dealings with the ancient tribes of the Americas Mormonism as it was gradually revealed by Smith was/is polytheistic. The BOM has been successively edited to remove the monotheistic language of the original 1830 edition, making it decidedly polytheistic.
And because the original 1830 edition of the BOM was literally chock-full of historical anachronisms (this text, allegedly a record of Jesus’ ministry to the ancient Native Americans, mentioned, among other things, horses, elephants, smelting, steel swords, silk, monetary systems, Freemasonry and republican forms of government).
And of course there’s zero evidence for any of the peoples and civilizations referenced in the BOM( unlike the Bible).
These are my main two reasons for rejecting the supernatural claims of Mormonism. I could also list Joseph Smith’s many failed prophecies; his moral character; etc. But these are the big two.
Pax.
Lee.
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Ancient Jews rejected Christianity because Christianity claimed that a man was God. They viewed this as polytheism.
Many skeptics believe that the Bible is chock-full of historical anachronisms and scientific errors. Christians and Mormons use the very same ad hoc excuses to defend these alleged errors.
No difference.
Failed prophecies? Jesus is the biggest failed prophet in history. He promised to return (before this generation…), but of course, Christians have an ad hoc explanation for this failed prophecy just as Mormons have ad hoc explanations for their prophet’s failed prophecies.
Bad character? Peter was a known liar and Paul repeatedly denied he was a liar. I have found that someone who feels compelled to repeatedly deny being a liar is usually a liar.
I’m sure one of your accusations against Mormonism and Joseph Smith is that he was a pedophile. Here is a question for Christians: Why did both Yahweh and Jesus turn a blind eye to rampant pedophilia in Israelite/Jewish culture?
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GARY: Ancient Jews rejected Christianity because Christianity claimed that a man was God. They viewed this as polytheism.
LEE: YHWH incarnating as a man isn’t polytheism; Judaism at least theoretically has no objection to this, as many OT texts portray attributes of YHWH such as his wisdom, personified as a human being. And As I understand it, Jews claim that the Trinity violates the essential unity and oneness of God.
GARY: Failed prophecies? Jesus is the biggest failed prophet in history. He promised to return (before this generation…), but of course, Christians have an ad hoc explanation for this failed prophecy just as Mormons have ad hoc explanations for their prophet’s failed prophecies.
LEE: Jesus in Mark 13 and Matthew 24 was predicting the destruction of the Temple, which occurred in AD 70; as for his return, it was not intended as a literal return, but a figurative return in judgment on the very Temple cult which had rejected him 40 years earlier.
That’s the key thing to remember about apocalyptic imagery (Mark 13, Matthew 24, parts of Ezekiel, Daniel, Revelation, etc.): it isn’t intended to be interpreted literally. Instead, apocalyptic imagery uses fantastic, figurative imagery to imbue current historical events with their cosmic, eternal significance. You have to read like an ancient Jewish or Christian person would.
Jesus himself says repeatedly in the gospels that the Kingdom of God is “now, but not yet.” In other words, it’s here, but not fully here. Thus, we’ve been in the “last days” since the resurrection. Peter, Paul, etc. all knew this, thus nobody in the early church literally expected Jesus to return within their lifetime. They fully understood the “now, but not yet” paradox.
Pax.
Lee.
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LEE: YHWH incarnating as a man isn’t polytheism; Judaism at least theoretically has no objection to this, as many OT texts portray attributes of YHWH such as his wisdom, personified as a human being. And As I understand it, Jews claim that the Trinity violates the essential unity and oneness of God.
Baloney. Late first century Christianity (the Christianity of the Gospel of John) was rejected by Jewish authorities because it claimed that Jesus was God; that the Father is God; that the Spirit is God. This is polytheism, plain and simple. The concept of the Trinity is an elaborate ad hoc explanation (spin) to deny that late first century Christianity had become polytheistic.
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Jesus in Mark 13 and Matthew 24 was predicting the destruction of the Temple, which occurred in AD 70; as for his return, it was not intended as a literal return, but a figurative return in judgment on the very Temple cult which had rejected him 40 years earlier.
Blah. Blah. Blah. This is the same kind of hemming and hawing (spin) that Mormons do trying to explain away their failed prophecies. Jesus was the biggest failed prophet in history. To keep their hopes of the New Kingdom alive, Jesus’ disciples were forced to reinterpret his failed prophecy. This is classic cognitive dissonance.
Christians are still waiting…two thousand years later…for Jesus to finally fulfill his prophecy. I’m sorry to inform you, dear Christians but: Jesus is DEAD. He ain’t comin’ back, folks! Accept reality.
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GARY: If you can provide one supernatural claim about which the overwhelming majority of scientists, experts, and university educated people in all cultures and all countries believe to be true, then I will be happy to investigate the evidence for that ONE claim. Do you have such a claim???
LEE: Name one thing you can get “the overwhelming majority of scientists, experts, and university educated people in all cultures and all countries” to agree on. That would be a miracle in itself.
Pax.
Lee.
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