Matthew 2 - They came bearing gifts
- Thread starter Mendalla
- Start date
Welcome to Wondercafe2!
A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!
jimkenney12
Well-Known Member
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I failed to properly answer your last question. Frequently I start my sermon response to a reading by declaring the questions I have about the reading. Then I offer a response to the reading. I have never received any criticism regarding the declaration. Most parishioners are more interested in what the readings can mean to them in their daily lives.
European Christians invented a white Jesus. Many Christians invented an imperial Jesus as they conquered other nations. Many Conservatives Christians invented a Jesus that despises homosexuality and transgenderism. Too many Conservative Christians invented a Jesus that wanted laws against abortion. I did not invent a progressive Jesus. I embraced the Jesus of the Gospels who healed the sick snd handicapped, fed the hungry, gave hope to people with despair, taught many, challenged the status quo, and demonstrated that speaking truth to power was more important than life itself. I gave my life to that Jesus almost 60 years ago. And there are many moments when it felt like God intervening in my life to clear away barriers to answering calls to serve.
My faith is grounded on an experience of the living God, not on words or creeds that serve those with power. If your faith is so fragile that it requires others to believe the same as you, it is a fragile faith.
BetteTheRed
Resident Heretic
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
My "faith" is similarly grounded. I have been gently led to trust that God/The Universe/Everything has a "benign intent", on a macro level. My life/days are often imperfect/frustrating, but the arc of the Universe is to the good, and my soul will recombine with the universal ocean after it ends its time here.
Of course--and one of my Harvard colleagues was a member of that infamous and now discredited seminar! I have one of Funk's books in my persoanl library. That seminar blindly assumed the validity of the criterion of dissimilarity, the view that sayings of Jesus can be deemed authentic only if their content is dissimilar from both the teaching of the early church and ancient Judaism. In other words, the early church couldn't learn what Jesus taught and perpetuate it and Jesus couldn't derive much of His teaching from the Judaism of His day. What rubbish! In another post, I will demonstrate how Paul's Gospel of Christ's atoning death and resurrection was directly ratified by the Jerusalem apostles who knew Jesus' teaching such as the atonement teaching in Mark 10:45. It's striking how you progressives hide beyond authors as an excuse to avoid the hard work of critical thinking about the issues under discussion.
I challenge you to start a thread defending you rejection of Jesus' Passion predictions and I will counter with a sound way to connect Paul's atonement theology with eyewitnesses to Jesus' teaching.
Nope. Obviously you know nothing about Gospel source criticism. Mark and John had their own unique sources. According to first-century bishop Papias, Mark was Peter's interpreter, and so, Mark's Gospel is basically Peter's teaching notes and is referred to that way by Justin Martyr! Mark and John never had Q and only Matthew and Luke used the sources labeled M and L.
Translation. You have never confessed to your congregation how skeptical you are about the historical veracity of many of Jesus' sayings and NT miracle stories.
Redbaron
Pirate fan since the dark ages
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
No, the Jesus Seminar has never been discredited. However, the simplistic idea that Mark was Peter's has been. Justin Martyr, born c. 100 CE, wasn't an eyewitness to the life of Christ, or to the writing of the Gospel, so what he has to say about the subject is second-hand tradition which he had been taught. Mark and John never had Quelle, but Matthew and Luke did, AND they had Mark. It is highly likely they had those common words.
And I, in turn, challenge you to point out where I have rejected Jesus's Passion predictions.
Why are you so reluctant to deal seriously with thoughts and ideas that differ from what you believe? You just reject out of hand anything that might suggest a different understanding than yours. Why is that?
And I, in turn, challenge you to point out where I have rejected Jesus's Passion predictions.
Why are you so reluctant to deal seriously with thoughts and ideas that differ from what you believe? You just reject out of hand anything that might suggest a different understanding than yours. Why is that?
LOL, you don't read recent scholarly books on the Gospels; so how would you know? N.T. Wright is one of the most eminent NT scholars in the world and he has no use for that now passe Jesus Seminar. Readers will notice how Redbaron ducked my refutation of the Seminar's criterion of dissimilarity.
Obviously, you have never actually read Papias! He gets his information about the Gospels from Jesus' disciples who knew Matthew and Peter personally:
Thus, Papias learns not from books, but from "what things Aristion and John the Elder, DISCIPLES OF THE LORD, are (currently) saying. For I imagined that what was to be got from books was not as profitable for me as a LIVING AND ABIDING VOICE."
And what does Jesus' disciple, John the Elder, tell Papias about Mark's Gospel:
"Mark, having become Peter's interpreter, wrote down accurately what he remembered. However, it was not in the exact sequence that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ...He accompanied Peter, who accomodated his instructions to the needs (of his hearers), but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings."
John the Elder, Jesus' disciple, in effect says that when you read Mark, you're reading Peter's teaching notes, which deviate from the correct sequence of Jesus' life for didactic purposes. By implication, disciples are still alive who know the correct sequence and point out Mark's deviation from the true sequence. Peter himself attests Mark's presence with him (1 Peter 5:13). So Mark was composed in Rome, which helps explain its many Latinisms. Justin Martyr confirms all this from Rome, referring to Mark as "the Memoirs of Peter."
s
Are you actually claiming that Jesus' Passion prediction in Luke 13:33 derives from Mark 8:31, whose wording and conceptional framework are totally different?
As an academic who attended Princeton (MDiv) and Harvard (ThD) and participated in endless academic Bible conferences for many years, I have carefully assessed far more biblical perspectives than you have even heard of.
You talked about your youthful evangelical experience; so I offered just 1 relevant racial example from mine--and you twist that into a generalized claim about evangelicalism as a whole. LOL. As a matter of fact, though, I think evangelicals are more productively engaged in meeting the needs of the poor than progressives. And no progressive seminaries to my knowledge have the equivalent of Fuller Seminary's [evangelical] School of World MIssions. That school trains missionaries on how to meet third-world people in a wholistic ministry that is highly sensitive to their culture and the best strategies for meeting the needs of the whole person, social, physical, and spiritual.
@Waterfall:
Here are just 11 examples among many others of blood atonement explicitly taught by Paul, Peter, John the Elder, and John the Seer (Romans 3:25; 5:9; Ephesians 1:7: 2:13; Colossians 1:20; 1 Peter 1:2, 20; 1 John 1:5: Revelation 1:5; 5:9; 7:14; 12:11). So pastors and ministers who reject blood atonement are merely rejecting undisputed New Testament teaching in favor of their own contrived theology. What makes this especially sad is that these NT authors are merely following Jesus' teaching in texts like Mark 10:45. So these ministers are also rejecting Jesus' stated ministry purpose in favor of their own progressive agendas. What these ministers also don't get is this: Jesus' blood atonement fullfills OT blood atonement and thus brings to an end a blood atonement system that God wanted the Jews to get past (so Jeremiah 7:21, 23; Hosea 6:6; Psalm 51:16-17). Thus, Hebrews teaches that Jesus' blood sacrifice is the sacrifice to end all sacrifices, a goal that was aided by the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple with its sacrifice system in 70 AD.
jimkenney12
Well-Known Member
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Who was Papias?
jimkenney12
Well-Known Member
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
By the way, i do not regard any of the words ascribed to Jesus in the Gospel of John to be his words. There is no way his long monologues could have been remembered
paradox3
Peanuts Fan
- Pronouns
- She/Her/Her
Notwithstanding the scholarly discussion on this thread, can't we agree that the Bible is open to interpretation? Both the old and new testaments?
When it comes to the Hebrew Scriptures, they have given rise to 4 or 5 major divisions within Judaism. Scholars spend a lifetime studying the Torah alone.
Christian denominations number in the thousands. Although they differ in terms of structure and governance, they also have major theological differences. Interpretations of the bible account for a great deal of this, wouldn't you say? Along with varying emphases on certain aspects of faith
When it comes to the Hebrew Scriptures, they have given rise to 4 or 5 major divisions within Judaism. Scholars spend a lifetime studying the Torah alone.
Christian denominations number in the thousands. Although they differ in terms of structure and governance, they also have major theological differences. Interpretations of the bible account for a great deal of this, wouldn't you say? Along with varying emphases on certain aspects of faith
jimkenney12
Well-Known Member
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Some people believe only some interpretati
The bible even states that we need interprters ... possibly because of something buried in the myth of logi (a different state of Logos) regarding the icons and signs that are quite scattered in meaning because of our indefninite knowledge ... it cannot be determined from here just now!
Thus splits, divides and other abyss ess! Unseen mules in the system carrying on ...
You do know that Jesus didnt shed any blood on the cross right? He died from crucifixion not from a blood sacrifice, which would have been pretty messy.
Also,
"No man, by any means can redeem his brother,or give to God a ransom for him."
Psalm 49:8
Basically everyone must be accountable for their own sins. You cannot transfer sins onto another.
I expect you to pontificate from biblical ignorance, but I'm appalled that Pastor Jim "likes" your biblically ignorant comments and thus demonstrates how superficially he studies the Gospels and their Greco-Roman background.
First, "nails" are driven through Jesus' "hands" (wrists) and would bleed profusely on the cross (John 20:25; confirmed by Luke 23:39 and Colossians 2:14).
Second, blood gushes out of His side when a Roman soldier pierces his side with a spear (John 19:34).
Third, the use of long nails was as a standard (if not exclusive) form of Roman crucifixion and archaeologists have unearthed the corpse of a man who was crucified in Jerusalem in Jesus' time with a 4 1/2 inch nail driven through his ankles.
Fourth, part of the routine crucifixion process is a floggins with the sharp metals of Roman flagellum. The Roman flogging reported in the Gospels, not to mention the crown of thorns, would already make Jesus bleed as He was being nailed to the cross.
Waterfall: Also, "No man, by any means can redeem his brother,or give to God a ransom for him."
Psalm 49:8 Basically everyone must be accountable for their own sins. You cannot transfer sins onto another.
How typical of progressives like you and Jim to rip a text out of its context and warp its meaning to suit your woke agenda.
Here is the NRSV's more accurate translation with the context included to clarify the meaning:
"No ransom avails for one's life, there is no price one can give to God for it. For the ransom of life is costly and can never suffice, that one should live on forever AND NEVER SEE THE GRAVE...THEIR GRAVES ARE THEIR HOMES FOREVER (49:7-9, 11).
The psalmist does not believe in life after death and is simply making the point poetically that no one can buy his way out of the inevitability and permanence of physical death. All commentaries on Psalms agree on this point. Unlike Mark 10:45, this psalm has nothing to do with vicarious atonement for the sins of others to ensure their eternal life after death.
Mystic, your continued use of 'progressives' and woke' as insults is unnecessary and unappreciated. Kindly desist from using these words as insults, and kindly show some respect to those to whom you are speaking. If you want to explain how you see things from your perspective, fine. Please do so. But please leave the insults and the arrogance out of it.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation in helping to keep this board a pleasant [place to be.