Takoda

The story of Jesus is not history prophesied but rather is prophesy historicized. Our gospels, particularly the synoptic gospels were written in the Hebrew/Jewish literary tradition of "haggadic midrash" in which old stories were quite deliberately recycled into the new to establish the continuity of God's connection to his people.

Allah" is simply the Arabic word for "God" --- nothing more, nothing less. Arabic speaking Christians use the word in their scriptures and in their liturgy. The Maronite Christians are one such group.

It would seem that women play at sex to get love while men play at love to get sex.

There may be several grains of truth to the flood mythology of Noah and similar mythologies from elsewhere in the ancient Middle East. About 25 years ago it was discovered (" Noah's Flood" by Ryan and Pitman) that in antiquity the Black Sea was a freshwater lake with a water level at least 155 meters (510 feet) below its present level. It was cut off from the Mediterranean Sea by a silt plug in the Straits of Bosporus. This plug broke through about 7600 YBP due primarily to the dramatic rise in sea levels caused by the melting that ended the last ice age.. It created an immense waterfall whose sound was most likely audible for 100 or more miles. The Black Sea basin filled to its present level over a period of several weeks. It is estimated that the shore line advanced at the rate of a mile or more per day. For the people living around the lake it was a catastrophe of immense magnitude. It was likely the single most memorable flood in all of human history. The racial memory of this event probably inspired the Gilgamesh epic which in turn inspired the Noah narrative in the Bible. The evidence for this flood is scientifically solid. This prompted the National Geographic Society to finance an underwater search along the ancient shoreline for evidence of pre-flood human habitation. This search has been successful! A settlement has been found at a depth of 90 meters approximately 12 miles off the coast of Turkey. It is in a remarkable state of preservation because it is located in an area of the Black Sea where the water is completely devoid of oxygen with the effect that biological decomposition does not take place. This means that wooden artifacts such as tools, planks, housing beams etc are preserved intact. What is also quite amazing is that while there is solid scientific evidence for this local flood some 7600 YBP, there is no evidence at all for a worldwide flood just 4300 YBP. One would think that a more recent, more catastrophic event would have wiped out evidence of the earlier Black Sea event. There is also evidence for a similar event causing the flooding of the Gulf of Arabia about 10,000 YBP.

I am a retired scientist, mathematician and educator --- BSc, MSc, BEd. My formal education took 18 years for a career of 40 years. When you stop learning, you are dead or might as well be.

Fifty days following Passover, the ancient Jewish lectionary called for the Feast of Pentecost. This feast remembered Moses at Mount Sinai and celebrated the wonder and virtues of the Torah. This celebration took the form of a vigil. The day was broken into eight segments of three hours each and, just like a vigil in a modern Christian church, the congregation would divide themselves up in such a way that there was always a group in the synagogue for each of the eight portions of the vigil. The principle reading was Psalm 119. At 176 verses, this is by far the longest of the psalms. It is broken into 22 stanzas each marked by a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The first stanza, Aleph, was the meditation for the first segment of the vigil. The entire congregation was probably present at this point and a full worship service was likely held. The remaining 21 stanzas were broken into seven groups of three each, one group for each of the remaining seven portions of the vigil. The second portion of the vigil, for example, would meditate on stanzas Beth, Gimel and Daleth. The remarkable organization of the psalm strongly suggests that it was written specifically for use in the vigil. There are other clues to that as well, for example: verse 62: "At midnight I rise to praise thee." and verse 147: "I rise before dawn and cry for help." and a number of other similar verses as well. Let us now investigate how the Christian scribe, Matthew, used the midrashic technique to introduce Jesus into this Jewish feast of Pentecost. As mentioned earlier, Pentecost honored Moses and the Law received on Mount Sinai. Matthew portrayed Jesus as the new Moses delivering a new law on a new mountain. I refer of course to the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:17-29). The sermon is organized to fit the vigil format that we've already examined. The Sermon begins with an octave of eight blessings or beatitudes, and in typical Jewish literary style, the eight blessings are bracketed by making the first and the last reward identical. Thus both "the poor in spirit" and those "persecuted for righteousness sake" are promised the Kingdom of God. The remainder of the Sermon is divided into eight sections, each of which is an exposition of one of the beatitudes. Again in typical Jewish literary style, the last beatitude is explained first and so on working backward through the list. It also goes, almost without saying, that these eight expositions on the new Law of Jesus fit perfectly into the eight portions of the vigil of Pentecost. What does this tell us about the Sermon on the Mount? Was it an actual historical event in the life of Jesus? There is of course a remote possibility that it actually was. However, in light of the very artificial arrangement of the Sermon to fit neatly into the Feast of Pentecost, I would suggest that there was no one event in the ministry of Jesus that could be classified as the Sermon on the Mount. Should we therefore throw it out as unhistorical? NEVER! What is important here is not whether the Sermon on the Mount was an historical event but that the content of the Sermon reflects the authentic teaching of Jesus. The fact that this teaching was probably done over a period of time in many different teaching situations is not nearly as important as the basic truth of these teachings. To put it a different way, the authority of scripture does not rely upon the details of its historicity but rather upon its ability to instruct us spiritually and point us in the direction of God. What I have introduced here is a new insight into the way in which the gospels came into being. They were arranged to fit into the pre-existing Jewish lectionary and they were written in the Jewish tradition known as midrashic literature. This is a new point of entry into biblical truth. To anyone who clings to the notion of literal truth, I can only say that it is the content of the teaching that is important and not the literal historicity of the biblical story.

I would say " Hello Rabbi, do you have some time to talk?"

I regard the flood narrative as a teaching tool, sort of like a large scale parable. There are other parables of this sort --- Job, Jonah and Ruth.

Thank you so much. I was unaware of this resource. I loaned the book to a friend 20 years ago and have not seen it since. I've lost a few like that over the years.

Both Popes are reformers and that is the only hope for the future of the RCC. I wish them well because most of my family are RCC. They are on their own, I am no longer involved.

We have walked similar paths. I too was a Catholic for my first 30 years. Another good read is "Vicars of Christ --- the dark side of the Vatican" by Fr. Peter DeRosa. Hard to find because the book is out of print and he has been silenced.

I know my Christian history very well too. In fact in 1961 I was given an award for apologetics from a Catholic University. My studies have taken me to different conclusions. In my opinion Pope Francis is the greatest hope for the RCC since Pope John XXIII.

Right from the earliest decades there were several rival Christian churches/denominations. It is only with Constantine and the Council of Nicea that the Roman Catholic Church came into existence. Although I have been a Christian for over 75 years I am now convinced That Jesus had no intention about founding a "church". I think that his real intent was a complete reform of second temple Judaism. It is certainly true that those who followed very quickly lost that vision.

If you are fed by the KJV then by all means stick with it. However the others are neither hurriedly copied or incomplete.

The King James Version of the New Testament was based upon a Greek text (the Textus Receptus) that was marred by mistakes, containing the accumulated errors of fourteen centuries of manuscript copying. It was essentially the Greek text of the New Testament as edited by Beza, 1589, who closely followed that published by Erasmus, 1516-1535, which was based upon a few medieval manuscripts. The earliest and best of the eight manuscripts which Erasmus consulted was from the tenth century, and yet he made the least use of it because it differed most from the commonly received text; Beza had access to two manuscripts of great value, dating from the fifth and sixth centuries, but he made very little use of them because they differed from the text published by Erasmus. We now possess many more ancient manuscripts (about 9000 compared to just 10) of the New Testament, and thanks to another 400 years of biblical scholarship, are far better equipped to seek to recover the original wording of the Greek text. Much as we might love the KJV and the majesty of it’s Jacobean English, modern translations are more accurate.

I could not disagree more. I grew up in the RCC before Vatican II. Entered seminary but left after a year. The Church desperately needed to be liberalized. Subsequent popes betrayed John XXIII and threw the church back into the 19th century. This is part of the reason that I am no longer Catholic. When the priest conducted the mass with his back to the people he was essentially cutting the people off from participation in the liturgy. Mass became a little play conducted by priest and servers leaving the people out completely. A far cry from the Last Supper.

What is it about this venue that seems to attract people who hate their fellow Christians? I thought that we were growing out of that but here it is alive and well.

The "Lord's Prayer" in English is a translation. Pope Francis' change makes far better sense because God does not "lead us into temptation". That is Satan's job. I approve this change.

At the time of Jesus there were as many as 2 million Jews living in Egypt with Alexandria being a major centre. It makes very good sense that Egypt was an early target of evangelism.

I believe that it is perfectly appropriate to use physical force to defend yourself or another who is threatened. That response should not be excessive. In my entire life (I am 76) I have only been in that situation once when I was 2o. It was an attempted mugging by three young thugs. I decked the first guy with one punch and the others ran off. When I got home I had to pick teeth fragments out of my fist and stop the bleeding.

Icons are an aid to prayer and meditation and worship. They are not the aim or object of worship.

However, homosexual behaviour does not seem to be a matter of choice because it is observed as part of the natural range of sexual behaviour in over 200 species. In some of those cases it is observed as a natural response to the pressures of overpopulation. Sexual response and sexual behaviour is far more complex than was thought in the past. Common sense is not a reliable guide.

Homosexual desire is innate and in human populations is completely normal for about 3-5% of the population. Innate desire is not sinful but actions may be sinful for both homosexual and heterosexual people.

All three of the Abrahamic faiths emerged out of an extremely patriarchal culture. Cultural understandings usually shape the entire world view of those living in that culture. With few exceptions people are simply unable to think outside that world view. We are a culture that is slowly transitioning away from patriarchy but such transitions proceed slowly and can take centuries and there is always great opposition. But once cultural assumptions are questioned, they are already dying. Personally, I regard patriarchy as perhaps the most pernicious evil that people have ever inflicted on themselves.

I was born and raised Catholic but am no longer a member. After several decades of searching, reading and prayer I have come to the conclusion that no church and/or denomination is what Jesus intended. Some seem to come closer than others.