TheInvisibleDan

"Christ" is God.

"Jesus" is Clark Kent.

Who is Jesus? Indeed.

The Unitarian position posits that the doctrine of the trinity more or less came about came about through the gradual process that deified Jesus. Drawing from myths floating about at the time.

However it might be argued that Wierwille and others who hold a similar position may have it backwards.

Jesus began as a God for whom was penned an earthly life and story.

Someone living in the vicinity of the late first, early second century was moved to write a new story about a God which descended to the earth and took on the appearance of a man. A God which came down from heaven and personally lived among mankind. But nobody knew his true, secret identity! - none the characters in the narrative at least (except for the demons, which mistook him for a powerful angel of the world ruler ), - Why even the original disciples were clueless to who (and what) He was.

Some scholars have suggested the possibility that the Gospels were written long after authentic material attributed to Paul. That these Gospels were an attempt to “flesh out” an earthly life of the vague “Christ” figure described in Paul, of whom readers actually knew very little outside of Paul. He was a stranger. How appropriate that one of the earliest gospels begins in depicting Jesus this way. As “the Stranger” that enters the world and walks among mankind. Now readers had before them an exciting new “prequel” to the mysterious figure of the Pauline material - the Good news of the heavenly God, who shape-shifted into a man, and walked among us, using powers beyond those of mere mortal men to heal, and His wisdom to confound the Wise.

Could a process as this - God becoming man - have occurred in such a manner?

Perhaps not, but I haven’t had reason to entirely rule it out.

I should add that "purists" of the time - those which adhered strictly to the figure of Paul's "Christ" Spirit - did not warm up to this new human "Jesus"

in the gospel that came out (and spawned many imitators - just like the market today!) - others successfully resolved this by depicting the Christ Spirit

entering into his human Jesus host at the baptism of John. "Jesus" and "Christ" became the biparte being of various gnostic movements.

The Acts of John depicts the Christ Spirit departing from the human Jesus hanging on the cross, appearing to his disciple John hiding in a cave ("My Power! My Power! Why have you left me?" - Frag. Gospel of Peter).

Or "Eli, Eli" would have worked just as well.

Perhaps why Paul (or his editor) admonished "no one who speaks under the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed...and no one is able to say the Lord is Jesus..." (1 Cor.12:3) or perhaps one reason behind John "every spirit which avows Jesus the Christ having come in flesh is of God...every spirit which is not avowing Jesus the Lord... (1 John 4).

It's interesting to see both writers (or editors) hung up on the "Jesus is Lord" thing here.

A work entitled "Gnosticism in Corinth" considers this material in greater depth than I could even attempt here.

Suffice to say, there were some who accepted "Christ" and rejected "Jesus". Very unusual. What brought about this whole controversy?

Perhaps the publication of the Gospel depicting Paul's God descending to earth and masquerading as a man.

Apparently not everyone accepted it right away at the time.

Like the controversies one might observe today among die-hard fans of the old "Battlestar Galactica" series and the new series on Sci-Fi (which BTW, is a very good show!)

Now, lest I ramble myself into a van down by the river, I must end here for now.

I said all I was supposed to say and I'll just draw the line right here.

I can see that many of you have unresolved issues that you need to work out before I am able to go any further.

I was not allowed to post here until after I came clean. I was wondering why, now I see.

I'll just close saying I don't have any hard feelings toward any of you. I really wish you all the best. This forum is a really good thing and I hope it stays alive.

goodbye, peace out.

ano

Which is easier to say?

"Rise up and Walk."

Go and sin no more.

Welcome to Greasespot, Anothen.

Danny

"Truly the Holy Spirit has moved the bowels of the Prophets.

I attest these lost manuscripts of "St. Elmo to the Greasespottians", recently unearthed from the original, earlier strata of this thread

and presented by Professor Satori to be unquestionably authentic!

The wealth of information that these epistles provide for present day scholars attempting to reconstruct the mindset of ancient Wierwillism in the late 70s and 80s

is certain to greatly expand our knowledge in this field."

Here's one of those standard, boring and dry higher-critical textbooks:

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014025773X?ie=UTF8&tag=greascafe-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=014025773X">James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=greascafe-20&l=as2&o=1&a=014025773X" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />

1,000 pages of dry, repetitive (how many times do we have to analyze the bathing habits of James?), long-winded reading. But the research is top-notch and well worth the read.

Basically, in regards to the current subject, Eisenman shows that Stephen's speech actually belongs to James. A combination of when he was killed by the high priest in about the year 63 C.E., and when he was attacked by Paul and thrown down the steps of the temple, breaking one or both of his legs, leading to the retreat and chase by Paul mentioned in Acts 8. It was re-written to minimize James' role in the first century and promote Paul's.

He did identify who Stephen most likely was, but I forget who. All I remember is that he was associated with Paul.

I'll have to check out Marcion and Luke-acts.

Oh yeah. I joked to him on a mailing list that I still had only gotten halfway through his book since I picked it up a few years ago.

He really is a top notch researcher, but an editor would do him wonders.

Shaz beat me to Aaron Copland.

I recommend the chamber orch. 'original version' of "Appalachian Spring", particularly the recording

conducted by Copland on CBS/Sony. It's a beautiful recording, more intimate & contemplative and not bombastic

like the full blown symphony suite.

Respighi, "Ancient Dances and Airs for Lute Suites 1, 2 & 3" ( Mercury, Antal Dorati).

Rich, lively stuff.

Any "greatest hits" compilation cd of Vaughan Williams' music (should include "The Lark Ascending").

If you're in a religious movie film kind of mood -

Alan Hovhaness, "Mysterious Mountain".

Music for cleaning the house:

Gershwin, "Rhapsody in Blue"; Oscar Levant on the paino is still my favorite version.

What?!

No one likes "Jesus the Friendly Phantom"?

Why won't you be my friend?

Everyone keeps running away...

I always like to add only this to such discussions -

it is possible to believe Jesus Christ is God outside the context of the doctrine of the Trinity.

If you still don't like the Trinity, and are bored with the Unitarian position as well -

fret not, there is plenty of evidence that Jesus was believed among early Christians to

be "the Christ-God".

There are alternatives to the Johnny-come-lately Unitarian and Trinitarian formulations.

Reading Acts 6 and 7 is like reading a book on U.S. history about the revolutionary war. You come on a section that talks about Chief Running Bull defeating the British at Gettysburg. If this is the only book you had, you would pretty much have to take it at its word. But given other history sources, reading this jumps out as something not being right.

Has anyone had the thought that the text in Acts might be corrupt?

Standard, boring and dry higher-critical textbooks in colleges place the writing of Acts in the second century.

Here's a link to a more recent work which explains why Acts is a product of the second century.

Danny

Hope,

I'm very sorry for your loss. I also lost my mother last year.

It's a tough one. Take care.

Danny

Dannny said:

"Lets get real- Christians will never reach a consensus on such "basics" as the state of the dead, or how many crucifed, of the infallibility of super holy books, or how many demons it takes to dance on the eyeball of a chalatan, or how many gods it takes to fit into your toaster, - in the grand scheme of things, it all seems such piddly nonsense."

Indeed.

"But what if we all agreed to disagree, and to live by "Love your neighbor as your own self", and even "love your enemies"?

Far be it from me to get all touchy-feely, but you might have something there. I don't think the "let's kill everybody who doesn't agree with us" mantra is getting us anywhere...

Lol. No, I don't all this war business is doing anyone any good, outside of whoever's profiting from it all.

It's crazy stuff. I want to get a bumper sticker made, "Are We an Advanced Civilization Yet?"

But someone would most likely fill my gas tank with sugar (lol).

Anyways.. I'm just wasting thread space.. Maybe even without a point.. Love.. Yeah, get back to living that in everything..

C'mon! I thought yours was a fine usage of thread space.

The cowboys and the ranchers can be friends!

Invisible Dan,

Concerning historical evidence Bruce refers to early Jewish writings – especially the Jewish Historian Josephus http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/ffbruce/ntdocrli/ntdocc09.htm

The Works of Josephus is a good read for anyone that enjoys ancient history and touches on noteworthy people and events in the Bible. I'm not here to defend Bruce – just responding to you asking what evidence he provides. He does list some books for further reading of which I've read a couple

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/ffbruce/ntdocrli/ntdocbib.htm

I'm not hung up in trying to defend the "integrity" of the Bible – or that I could prove it's infallible by doctrinal or philosophical argument. My opinion on any Bible stuff is going to be biased for sure – I'm a Bible-believing Christian. My point in these posts has been – from the things I've read, I believe the New Testament documents are reliable in terms of historical and geographical references, who wrote them, when they wrote them and because of my Christian bias [philosophical presupposition] view them as doctrinally and philosophically harmonious with the Old Testament.

The field of higher criticism is -like any field -not without its boondoggles, while its many significant contributions to exploring the Biblical literature are apparently not as well known to a general audience outside the more sensational theories that hit the news from time to time. I wouldn't, for example, consider James Cameron among the top ten. It was fascinating news for about 15 minutes (lol) and the whole thing went flat. This all on the heels of Dan Brown and "Judas" over the past couple of years. The "Gospel of Judas" was at least quite interesting.

I suppose my "philosophical presupposition" in my "critical" appoach may be summed up simply as attempting to make distinction between the "wheat" and the "tares" that occupy the field of Biblical literature. We will never entirely root out all the tares, but I think we've certainly much to gain in trying, in considering scriptures from root to fruit, instead of assuming they all emerge from the same source.

I even think the very character of Christ can all the more be guiding here. In fact, in my personal experience -such seems to far surpass the doctrinal hypnoticism cast by "All scripture is God -breathed..." and the limitations thereof.

Like I said before - I guess it comes down to which scholars you refer to. I have The Commentary on the New Testament: Acts by R.C.H. Lenski, Speaking about the noted scholar Sir W.M. Ramsay, Lenski says on page 8, 9:

"Ramsay…started with the view that the Acts were of little value historically because, like John's Gospel, they had been written with an ulterior purpose. But in his Bearing of Recent Discovery, p.89, he confesses: "The more I have studied the narrative of Acts, and the more I have learned year after year about the Greco-Roman society and thoughts and fashions and organizations in those provinces, the more I admire and the better I understand. I set out to look for truth on the borderland where Greece and Asia meet and found it here."

End of excerpt

I haven't done a "google" on this yet, but are you aware of any websites featuring his writings?

I'de like to revisit a chapter he did exploring the theory that Paul may have known Jesus prior to His crucifixion.

Unfortunately I can't recall the title of that particular Ramsey book at the moment.

It's been many years since I last read it.

I am no longer a follower of the Bible-worshipping crowd like TWI. I think that produces a cold, lifeless, legalistic religion that prohibits God from intruding. I view the Bible as a means to connect with God. Nor do I think the Bible or my faith will fall apart if I'm wrong on how many were crucified with Jesus. Because I focus on the central figure of the crucifixion – Jesus! I agree with your sentiment that Christians should be more concerned about following the teachings of Jesus and not getting hung up on doctrinal differences.

I intended to take on the premise of the writer - not you personally. Though I understand this might well be unavoidable,

depending on how much one might identify with a certain writer. In any event, T-Bone, I regard you a fine person and poster, even if I disagree with

"Bruce!" :) - or even should I disagree with you. Your posts are thoughtful, your spirit shines through.

Danny

IMHO if we had only the gospels Christianity would look a lot different today. For better or for worse Paul was a pivotal figure, or at least whoever wrote the epistles attributed to him was.

Perhaps. I sincerely wish that the teachings of Christ concerning fellow human beings treating one other with the utmost dignity and respect

had come to occupy exclusively the realm of ethics, rather than being padded with oddball and hairbrain religious superstitions concerning gods and demons

and heavens and hells, and the like.

Brings my mind to the title to a neighboring thread started by Sunesis, "The Basics of Christianity".

Lets get real- Christians will never reach a consensus on such "basics" as the state of the dead, or how many crucifed, of the infallibility of super holy books, or how many demons it takes to dance on the eyeball of a chalatan, or how many gods it takes to fit into your toaster, - in the grand scheme of things, it all seems such piddly nonsense.

But what if we all agreed to disagree, and to live by "Love your neighbor as your own self", and even "love your enemies"?

That's a helluva challenge to us all.

The world might well indeed be transformed if all strived to emphasise the edicts of Christ on treating one another well as

the "basic" of Christianity, relegating doctrines and myths and other assorted mumbo-jumbo to the back seat.

Danny

Invisible Dan, I guess it depends on which scholars you refer to. The following excerpt is from The New Testament Documents – Are They Reliable by F.F. Bruce – and I think your position is based more on a philosophical presupposition [see the bold red section below] than on historical evidence. The link to this article is

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/ffbruce/ntdocrli/ntdocc02.htm

T-Bone,

Do you think it's possible that F.F. Bruce has it backwards, and is in fact speaking quite "philosophically" from his presumptions, indeed more so than "historically"?

Example, from the outset of his rather "philosophical" discourse:

"…The New Testament was complete, or substantially complete, about AD 100, the majority of the writings being in existence twenty to forty years before this. "

He gives none, really, outside of his sweet, eloquent assurances to his largely target Bible-worshipping audience

that they have little to fear from those darn godless critical scholars.

About the middle of the last century it was confidently asserted by a very influential school of thought that some of the most important books of the New Testament,including the Gospels and the Acts, did not exist before the thirties of the second century AD. This conclusion was the result not so much of historical evidence as of philosophical presuppositions.

Bruce, like Wierwille, Bullinger, and countless others, doesn't like to question - at least *too much* - those "presuppositions" concerning the "integrity" of the Bible which he worshipped.

He was unable to set aside his own philosophy to examine the obvious stylistic/grammatical/ historical issues which exist between the authentic Pauline material and the so-called Pastoral epistles.

And contrary to what he wished to believe himself, the issues raised by higher critics have been anything but entirely unfounded

or dismissed. In Bruce's case, - as with so many other fundamentalists- a great many things raised by critical scholars were and are simply ignored .

And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt.

But alas - they're not.

We're not talking about Homer's "Illiad" or Aschylus' "Promethius Bound" - religious literature is a whole different animal,

subject to a whole different set of historical circumstances and situations, often involving power struggles and rivalries between

various movements within the same religion. Out of this emerged the writings comprising the NT as well as many other sacred scriptures.

Danny

T-Bone,

This section in Galatians - "Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord's brother, etc." - was missing from the earlier version of Galatians in Marcion's text, which may be reconstructed through citations against Marcion in the works of Tertullian, Epiphanius and Adamantius.

IMHO, the process of harmonizing the Pauline epistles to the pseudepigraphic book of "Acts" (again, actually written circ. 150 AD) will ultimately prove something of a red herring. That there were efforts made by the editors of the orthodox canon to "harmonize" Paul with "Acts" is not doubted. To make matters worse for us centuries later, they added many interpolations throughout Paul's authentic letters. A monument to this practice are the bogus Pastoral epistles (1&2 Tim., Titus), as well as the existence of the longer and shorter versions of epistles attributed tp St. Ignatius.

The point about "the man in Christ" referring to one already a convert: you may be correct, but if Paul claimed that he was "chosen" or "selected" from his "mother's womb", when was Paul not "in Christ"?

Danny

It looks like Paul IS referencing his road to Damascus experience in Galatians 1 – where he does not emphasize the “special effects” of the incident – but the point of the experience – “to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles” [Galatians 1:16].

Or might this - from what we may gather from Paul's own words - allude to the event in 2 Cor. 12, of having been "caught away" to the "third heaven"?

The Marcionite version of Galatians (2:1f) has Paul "going up to Jerusalem" for the first time "after fourteen years" - cf. with 2 Cor. 12:2 - "I knew a man in Christ

fourteen years ago..."

Of course it may be possible this section in Galatians refers to neither of the events presented in Acts or 2 Corinthians.

There is a new book advertised on Amazon .com - "Marcion and Luke Acts: A Defining Struggle" by Joseph B. Tyson, which, though I have not yet picked up, appears to elaborate upon the position I've arrived at over the past 15 years concerning the reason behind the compilation of "Luke-Acts", namely, to battle Marcion. The "Book Description" is as follows:

Building on recent scholarship that argues for a second-century date for the book of Acts, Marcion and Luke-Acts explores the probable context for the authorship not only of Acts but also of the canonical Gospel of Luke. Noted New Testament scholar Joseph B. Tyson proposes that both Acts and the final version of the Gospel of Luke were published at the time when Marcion of Pontus was beginning to proclaim his version of the Christian gospel, in the years 120-125 c.e. He suggests that although the author was subject to various influences, a prominent motivation was the need to provide the church with writings that would serve in its fight against Marcionite Christianity. Tyson positions the controversy with Marcion as a defining struggle over the very meaning of the Christian message and the author of Luke-Acts as a major participant in that contest.

Suggesting that the primary emphases in Acts are best understood as responses to the Marcionite challenge, Tyson looks particularly at the portrait of Paul as a devoted Pharisaic Jew. He contends that this portrayal appears to have been formed by the author to counter the Marcionite understanding of Paul as rejecting both the Torah and the God of Israel. Tyson also points to stories that involve Peter and the Jerusalem apostles in Acts as arguments against the Marcionite claim that Paul was the only true apostle.

Tyson concludes that the author of Acts made use of an earlier version of the Gospel of Luke and produced canonical Luke by adding, among other things, birth accounts and postresurrection narratives of Jesus.

Danny

I don't believe Paul is what so many people have believed him to be. First off, look at his "conversion." His particular experience is totally unprecidented. He is not a humble, meek, loving, guy trying to genuinely seek God when he finds Jesus. He is out on his way to try and kill and persecute more Christians. Unprecidented. Jesus speaks to him audibly and through a vision. There is no other record that I know of in which Jesus does anything like that. A random discple we have never heard of and never here about again is the guy that comes and heals him. What seems like overnight he goes from killing Christians to preaching to them.

What is he preaching? Not exactly the words of Jesus. The life of Jesus? Nope. How could he? He never knew Jesus. In fact many people see contradictions between what Jesus supposedly said and what Paul taught. Of course, the only evidence of what we believe Jesus said were things written after the epistles, but that is another topic. I think many of the things in Paul's epistles undermine many things in the Gospels. It is a Christianity that leans toward a new legalism, not the Christianity of the Gospels.

It is almost as though Paul went from one plan of attack to another. He threw in a gas pumps and snow type story and claimed that he was the new apostle. The other guys were apostles to the Jews and he was the apostle to everyone else. It just all seems a little fishy.

Of course so does the whole thing about there being no mention of Jesus anywhere until at least 40 years after his death, at which time he is "resurrected" by who?

I think we indeed know very little about the real “Paul” through the depiction posed by the Pseudo “Acts of the Apostles “ (written somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 AD, for the purpose of rewriting the story of the chief Apostle of the rival Marcionite movement, repackaging the “Apostle of the heretics” in an “orthodox” light .

Doesn’t anyone else here find it curious that Paul in those epistles directly attributed to him never so much alludes even once to this rather significant mind-blowing conversion experience played in Acts - no cgi fx withheld - on the “road to Damascus” ?

There have been a number of works written on the irreconcilable differences between the Paul/Saul of “Acts” and the “Paul” of the epistles, especially Galatians. Most notable is “The First Christian” by A. Powell Davies, who devoted a couple chapters to the problems which exists among these narratives. If it wasn’t bad enough that Acts and Galatians are at odds with one another, the 3 conversion accounts throughout the same work of Acts do not even match up

So who was this “Paul”?

Most intriguing, the Mariconites in “The Dialogue of Adamantius” claimed that Paul was an actual witness to the crucifixion of Christ, and that he had even written “The Gospel” - namely, the Gospel circulated by Marcion (which formed the basis for “Luke” in the later orthodox version).

I am of the preliminary opinion that Paul may have been one of “the seventy” called out by Jesus in Luke 10. Whether or not this was the case, I need to explore further.

Indeed, who was this Jesus presented by Paul?

The “Christ” of Paul is an angelic being, “the heavenly Lord” descended from above, not the baby born to a virgin in a manger (or a cave) in the orthodox gospels.

Danny

Maybe you guys should go to India, minister to people and see what happens.

Sure, send me a two way plane ticket scheduled for about the middle of July.

I can do some sitar shopping while I'm there.

Take up some yoga.

It'll be fun.

Sorry I'm late.

I happened to have in my cd archives a rare photograph of

the event in question.

Victor's glass eye is dropped during a recent board meeting of the blind Graiae

at twi hq.

Perseus and the Graiae by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1892).

Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

LOL!

I don't know, I think Steve Segal could give Chuck a run for the money in any attempt to emote actual expression on their mugs,

beyond squinting their eyes real hard.

Their faces resemble those drawn in the 60s Dell "Tarzan" comics.

Which faces simply had straight-drawn mouths and eye dashes.

Makes me question the creation.

Cool, Roy.

I've been thinking about "the White Lodge" and "The Black Lodge" from that old series "Twin Peaks".

I enjoy your "thinkin' out loud".

Take 3!

Pan in closer on shimmering glass eye, with the reflection of flames playing upon its surface, the camera drawing ever closer

and closer until the "flames" on the glass eye engulf the screen shot, morphing and blurring into an orange derbil spurt blob from "AOS".

cut!!

Roll credits!

Roll track of Ted Farrell doing Disco Elvis ...

Toss it in the can and

call "USA" or "Lifetime"