Part 35 of Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity

WHAT!!!!!! You mean a million man Ethiopian army didn't march a thousand miles to Palestine and get beaten by 40,000 Israelites. Dear me.

 

Bears repeating.. Where's Mitt?

 

What did Paul say about it in 1 Corinthians 11:4 (CEV) = "This means that any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head brings shame to his head."
So it seems that the artists who did those depictions were clueless about the fairy tale. When people see those images they are consequently misled about what their favorite ethnocentric Middle Eastern religious fairy tale says because they never read it and certainly don't understand it.

 

You need to remember that Paul was speaking to mainly to Greek converts. 2 cultures were clashing. Greek women were used to worshipping without hair covering. Jewish women were not. A Jewish woman without head covering was regarded as a woman of loose morals. Not so Grreks. Paul was trying to set a standard all could follow. Man was the head of the woman and God was the head of man. This was Pauls teaching, not Judaism.

 

Paul established the Christian doctrine and its rituals. So people who call themselves Christians should follow what he said.

 

The poor soul didn't know what he was talking about, did he. He should have used
the Bible for his source.

 

Of which you cherry picked. You should first learn the source.

For your continuing education.
English form of Ματθαιος (Matthaios), which was a Greek form of the Hebrew name מַתּ
תְיָהוּ (Mattityahu) meaning "gift of YAHWEH". Matthew, also called Levi, was one of the
twelve apostles. The variant Matthi as also occurs in the New Testament belonging to a
separate apostle. The name appears in the Old Testament as Mattithiah.

http://www.behindthename.com/name/matthew

LOL! We're not talking about English names. Seriously? Have you ever wondered where
Marc Anthony got his name? Hmmm... that's centuries before the middle ages. It must have
been a derivative. Yes! Go figure.

Research isn't your forte is it.

John is an English form of Iohannes (notice that there isn't a J) the Latin form of the Greek name
Ιωαννης (Ioannes), itself derived from the Hebrew name יוֹחָנָן (Yochanan) meaning "YAHWEH
is gracious".
http://www.behindthename.com/name/john

I'm sure this furthered your education. Whether or not you'll use it is another story.

 

Correct.

Yes they do.

Not true. Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew. The earliest known manuscripts are
inscribed with his name.

You're speculating without any concrete evidence to support your opinion.

 

The contention was that there were actual people at that time named Matthew, Mark, and John. The historical record shows that there were no people with those names at that time. If Matthew's name was Mattithiah then it show be used as such in the fairy tale. The same applies to Mark and John. Did the story teller change Diotrephes' name to Billy Bob? Did the writer change Onesiphorus' and Trophimus' names to Harry and Donald?

The writers changed the names so that the local yokels could better relate to them. That's what happens in Hollywood.

- - - Updated - - -

You can't produce such a manuscript because it doesn't exist. But trot out a fake one if you can find it.

 

What is your belief in the origins of man on earth. Is it a vague concept of Intelligent Design or is it Genesis. If it is Genesis, trying to show Einstein supported your beliefs displays ignorance of Einstein's views.

http://www.deism.com/einsteingodletter.htm

Einstein wrote the letter to Gutkind in regards to Gutkind's book, Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt (PDF). It is important to keep this fact in mind when reading Einstein's “God Letter” as it makes very clear that Einstein was addressing the Bible god and not Nature's God when he wrote,

 

You left out "intentionally misrepresented".

 

No, no speculating, Just using the the information accumulated by Christian researchers who have show that:
1. The writer of Matthew is not the apostle Matthew
2. The writer of Matthew was not an eyewitness to the events he writes about.


Nevertheless, ...
Second hand testimony is given as:

And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom ​

Eyewitness testimony is given as:

I saw Jesus pass forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom ​

Eyewitness testimony for your Matthew = Matthew view would be given as:

I saw Jesus pass forth from thence, he saw me, Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom ​

If Matthew = Matthew and he was an eyewitness, why would he deliberately write in a way that makes the account sound like he's writing about a story he heard about? This is true with all the writings attributed to Matthew and to all four gospels. It's very clear that the authors themselves did not want to been seen as eyewitnesses. It's very clear that the authors recognized themselves as documentarians.

If people tried to write first hand eyewitness accounts 100 years after the fact, their writings would have been laughingly rejected.

 

Despite what Prunepicker, he is also speculating. The first indication of Matthews Gospel are scraps of Papyrus containing small parts of the Gospel. There is no chapter 1 and only small parts of the gospel. We don't know that these were inscribed with his name. Some are In Magdalen College, Oxford (well they were when I visited) and some in Spain. These are dated circa 100-150CE if I remember rightly.

 

I've read it, but I don't come away feeling the way you do, as a matter of fact I believe all the stories depicted in the Holy Bible, it's one extraordinary, fascinating, remarkable, real life historical document, a book that is the Word of God...a must read for all.

Well there are a myriad of reasons why atheists are atheists, and it's just not limited to be because they read the Bible. IMHO I seriously doubt that most of them have read the Bible in its entirety. And lastly, one could write a book on why atheists deny the very existence of Almighty God the Creator!

That's ironic because anyone who believes that the universe came to be from nothing is demonstrating their lack of logical sense. Simple logic tells us from nothing...nothing comes. So it couldn't be that nothing created the universe...that doesn't make logical sense.

Something, that is uncaused, that is eternal had to be the cause that caused the universe and everything in it to come into existence. And that uncaused being is what we call God.

 

And the contentions are wrong as I pointed out in my post.

Not true. It's accurate. There is no fairy tale.

There's no need to use anything fake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthew

 

And we're grateful there weren't written 100 years after the fact. You see Matthew the
Apostle wrote the Gospel according to Matthew.

You're having a hard time understanding that Hebrews often wrote about themselves
in the third person. The reason is to avoid talking about themselves.

 

It's a remarkable novel with some historical data and many mythical stories, and anyone who has studied outside the Bible knows that.

And simple Logic has nothing to do with it. 4,000 years ago simple logic told us the earth was flat. Now we know different. Simple logic has moved on to science, to physics, to quantum physics. Simple antomy science turned to Biology, turned to MicroBiology and now Quantum Biology. Science is moving on all the time. Nothing? What is nothing?
Many things are impossible until proven possible.

 

The Gospel of Matthew is anonymous: the author is not named within the text, and the superscription "according to Matthew" was added some time in the 2nd century.[14][15] The tradition that the author was Matthew the Apostle begins with Papias of Hierapolis (c. AD 100–140), an early bishop and Apostolic Father, who is cited by the Church historian Eusebius (AD 260–340), as follows: "Matthew collected the oracles [logia: sayings of or about Jesus] in the Hebrew language [Hebraïdi dialektōi], and each one interpreted [hērmēneusen—perhaps 'translated'] them as best he could."[16][Notes 1][Notes 2] On the surface this could imply that Matthew's gospel itself was written in Hebrew or Aramaic by the apostle Matthew and later translated into Greek, but nowhere does the author claim to have been an eyewitness to events, and Matthew's Greek "reveals none of the telltale marks of a translation."[17][14] Scholars have put forward several theories to explain Papias: perhaps Matthew wrote two gospels, one, now lost, in Hebrew, the other the surviving Greek version; or perhaps the logia were a collection of sayings rather than the gospel; or by dialektōi Papias may have meant that Matthew wrote in the Jewish style rather than in the Hebrew language.[16] The consensus is that Papias does not describe the Gospel of Matthew as we know it, and it is generally accepted that Matthew was written in Greek, not in Aramaic or Hebrew.[18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthew

 

Those are fakes. They are written in the modern Greek alphabet.

 

He's a bit behind on answering questions. Come back in 4 yrs, he may get to it.
But, hard questions, as always have, been ignored.

 

Demons are barely mentioned in the Old Testament and when they are they are dismissed as imaginary beings that some people worship. They never infected anyone's body.

Jesus shows up and wham! The demons run wild, infecting people left and right. Jesus spent a lot of time purging people of their demons. Sometimes he was successful and sometimes he lost.

So if demons weren't a significant problem before Jesus showed up why did they break loose and start infecting people? The Apostles got in on the demon control business as well but they weren't very good at it. Even today the Pope has a squad of demon fighters ready to rumble and some muslims also have battles with demons that possess people. Like the Catholics they are big on exorcisms.

I wonder how many people are infected with demons like the ones Jesus was always dueling with?

 

Well that's what scientists believe but because it's based on assumptions of the unobservable past there is always that possibility that it's not as extremely accurate as they would have you to believe. So the question becomes how reliable are those key assumptions? And mind you we are talking of a past that wasn't observable.

Of course this is a theory...mentioning 'billions of years'

In today's world it's impossible, for one thing God promised us He would never again flood the entire world but we can't say it was impossible during the days of Noah because it was a different world back then.

I believe it's a true story of God's wrath/punishment on a sinful, wicked, depraved world. Man, you got to believe those people must have been real, real, real, real bad for God to punish them that way.

Look I don't know how you came up with your figures but it took Noah and his family of 8 members about a hundred years to build the ark. So based on that it's for certain your figures are way way off if you had 10,000 people working 24/7 to build that ark.

You could because Noah did it.

Mitt Ryan

 

Can you imagine the noise generated by 6 inches of rain per minute? And how would you and the animals be able to breathe with such a deluge displacing all of the air?

 

Your view is not the view of respected Christian scholars. Your view is entirely based on your own hopes. If I'm wrong, show some evidence from respected Christian scholars.

Show some contemporaneous writings from outside of religious writings to support your statement.

 

Sorry but nobody and I mean NOBODY can prove/disprove the sun was created along with everything else in existence by the Creator Almighty God!

It is by my devoted, unwavering faith that I make such a profound, emphatic statement.

But nevertheless, it's a fact that we do have an abundance of evidence that supports the existence of Almighty God, the Creator, who created everything in existence.

Sadly, even though we have the evidence, it still won't be the proof that satisfies everyone to believe, thus as I stated earlier, "nobody and I mean NOBODY can prove/disprove... .... ..."