5 kinds of Christians........

[alexey]

For your hypothesis to work, we have to assume (because you present no evidence) that a group of Second Temple Jews, having seen the Messiah they were following not only fail to do the things he was supposed to do, but die in a manner that proved he was not the Messiah, instead of either disbanding or turning to a relative, as happened every other time, for some reason had visions of him, and instead of treating these as visions were in those days, as visions of a dead person, or interpreting these visions within the established context of their faith, instead made up ideas that were new and completely alien to themselves and their surrounding culture, and they all agreed on one narrow way of thinking about this new and alien idea, rather than continuing the diverse range of thought they most likely had, as any normal grouping of Jews would.

Something like this, but without all the drama

As a side note, what do you think would happen if not for Paul?

[alexey]

As a side note... we have a public education system and population that can generally read and write... yet plenty of people still manage to come up with all kinds of crazy stuff. Would you imagine that 2000 years from now historians would be saying "yet, for some mysterious reason and against the established context of their surrounding culture and history, some people made up ideas that Obama was not born in the US"

[techboy]

Would you imagine that 2000 years from now historians would be saying "yet, for some mysterious reason and against the established context of their surrounding culture and history, some people made up ideas that Obama was not born in the US"

No, because it's not unusual or unexpected that a politician would lie to gain political office, even if in this case (and on this issue ), President Obama did not.

[CowboysSaintsFan]

.......I would be interested in knowing which group you fall in if you consider yourself a Christian:

Group #1: The entire Bible is infallible. Any perceived errors by a reader who is a non-believer are the fault of the reader.

Group #2: The Old Testament my have some flaws and/or errors but the New Testament is infallible.

Group #3: There are flaws and/or errors in both the Old and New Testaments but the basic message is correct and Jesus is the Son of God and he did rise from the dead.

Group #4: I don't know if there are flaws and/or errors in the Bible. I don't have enough knowledge about the Bible to confidently make such a statement but I would like to have that knowledge and to learn more about the Bible.

Group #5: I don't know if there are flaws and/or errors in the Bible and I have no desire to study the Bible to find out. I am a Christian and I believe what I believe and I trust others who have studied the Bible enough to rely on their opinions.

Group #6 - the DOMIONISTS - which are largely made up of all those "prominent" evangelicals that we see on the MSM/TBN all the time...Billy Graham, Franklin Graham, Oral Roberts, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, Bill Hybels, Brian McLaren, Sarah Palin, Rick Joyner, Pat Robertson, the late Jerry Falwell, Ted Haggard(BEFORE he got into trouble that is), Todd Bentley(before his little scuffle that is), Tim LaHaye, Hal Lindsey, Joel Rosenberg, John Hagee, etc.

Dominionist Theology is a belief that God will choose an elect to clean up the earth of all the ills et al, and then pave the way for Christ to rule the 1000 year mil. But this is 100% WRONG - Matthew 24, things will only go from bad to WORSE, THEN the Antichrist and his False Prophet emerge with their lying signs and wonders, and then Jesus comes back to judge the world at the END of the 7 year tribulation. Ultimately, Dominionism is nothing more than Communism in its true colors.(i.e. the Dominists have now bought into New Age theology, and is anticipating the Maitreya to be their "temporary Christ" in the short run)

Honestly, I don't think this group is even saved - Billy Graham is a 33rd Degree Freemason(it's not a "rumor", people who served in Freemasonry have come out about this), Warren is a CFR member(the CFR is trying to engineer the North American Union - Lou Dobbs was the first to break this story), and his "Purpose Driven Life" is nothing put Paganism, Hybels has ties to the United Nations, and Palin was chosen to be McCain's running mate just so that the GOP ticket would have the FACADE of being "evangelical", etc.

Ultimately, there's a REASON why the people in this group get LOADS of AIRTIME. Seriously - if any of them preach the TRUE gospel, I highly doubt Larry King Live, Hannity and Colmes, Joe Scarborough, et al would have decent ratings.

[techboy]

Clearly the mental strain that arises from rooting for two teams in the same conference is just too much for some people. :pfft:

Would you imagine that 2000 years from now historians would be saying "yet, for some mysterious reason and against the established context of their surrounding culture and history, some people made up ideas that Obama was not born in the US"

As I already noted, the answer is no, but I think we can elaborate on this to illustrate a point.

The "birthers" are not an analogous situation because they came to believe something untrue, but they did so with leaders that were far away from any first-hand knowledge of President Obama, who have great incentive to lie about him, and with, in any case, very imperfect information about him.

This is in contrast with the disciples who spent 3 years in the company of Jesus, and were his closest friends and allies. More importantly, as you know since this whole discussion arose from your caveat to my statement that it is an historical fact that the disciples and other earliest Christians really did have experiences that they took to be meetings with the risen Jesus, which rules out lying, and this is why you turn to visions as an alternate explanation.

Let's do a thought experiment, though. Suppose instead that 11 of President Obama's closest confidantes and supporters over the last 3 years, all died ion the wool moderate to liberal Democrats, members of his inner circle, all suddenly quit and ran around telling everyone that he was born in Kenya and should be removed from office.

2000 years from now, some historian might well have to work out the best explanation of this, and it might look like this:

What if they were all lying? Does this make sense?

They have no personal motivation to do so, it would appear. They're all friends and confidantes of the President.

They have no political motivation to do so, it would appear. They're all politically similar in goals to the President, and they have more power to get their ideas accomplished in the administration than outside.

Could they all have been persuaded by the birthers? Very improbable... The birthers arguments are terrible and never worked before.

Could they all have been blackmailed simultaneously by the birthers into lying? Very unlikely... this would require that a group without many resources find sufficient incriminating evidence on 11 people at once, and that all of them go along with it.

Could they have been fooled by forged evidence? Unlikely... not only would President Obama be able to provide genuine evidence to counter it, but they would have access to the resources of the government to debunk the forgery.

Could they have actually discovered genuine evidence that President Obama was born in Kenya? This would explain all the facts very well.

Now, some might argue that an explanation that requires 11 politicians to all have that much integrity requires the supernatural, and so is outside the realm of history :pfft:, but in our thought experiment I could definitely see our historian of 2000 years from now concluding that the best explanation of all the facts is that these 11 members of President Obama's inner circle did, in fact, come across evidence that he was born in Kenya.

[mardi gras skin]

http://www.robbell.com/resurrection/

[alexey]

What are your thoughts on the role of Paul in Christianity?

What would happen to beliefs that failed to attract educated Jews? Would we end up having any record of them today?

[mardi gras skin]

What are your thoughts on the role of Paul in Christianity?

He was one of a handful of people who were very influential (prominent in the West) in transmitting the testimony of Christ:

I Corinthians 1

I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas(Peter)"; still another, "I follow Christ."

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?

And regarding the great debates that came up later in the 3rd and 4th centuries (where most of the influence controversy originates), his letters don't seem to have been the focus.

What would happen to beliefs that failed to attract educated Jews? Would we end up having any record of them today?

You're approach to the subject at hand is interesting. You're very interested in "what if's" and not so much interested in the data. But I'll follow along.

I need to understand what you imagine to be an uneducated Jew. Do Jesus' followers count? Jesus? How about the followers of the other Messiahs? Only the Jews that originate from Galilee or only the Jews that rejected Greek education in favor of their "barbaric" education systems? Were the Essenes educated or deluded? Would you consider the Sadducees to be more educated than the Pharisees, the opposite, or merely educated in a different theology.

The reason this matters is that we do have records of what all these groups believed and we have record that some of these groups considered others to be uneducated. So, depending on what you mean by educated, it seems likely that we do have records of the beliefs of uneducated Jews.

[alexey]

You're approach to the subject at hand is interesting. You're very interested in "what if's" and not so much interested in the data. But I'll follow along.

I think this a part of examining the data. Where does the available data come from, what does it reflect? Where belief systems and dynamics homogeneous across the socioeconomic spectrum? This seems important because we may get the wrong picture if we assume that available written data contains a representative sample. Literacy rates at the time were extremely low (I remember seeing 5% number somewhere).

I need to understand what you imagine to be an uneducated Jew. Do Jesus' followers count? Jesus? How about the followers of the other Messiahs? Only the Jews that originate from Galilee or only the Jews that rejected Greek education in favor of their "barbaric" education systems? Were the Essenes educated or deluded? Would you consider the Sadducees to be more educated than the Pharisees, the opposite, or merely educated in a different theology.

The reason this matters is that we do have records of what all these groups believed and we have record that some of these groups considered others to be uneducated. So, depending on what you mean by educated, it seems likely that we do have records of the beliefs of uneducated Jews.

It would also be interesting to know whether there were any differences in the way Jewish elites and lower classes were practicing their religion.

[mardi gras skin]

It would also be interesting to know whether there were any differences in the way Jewish elites and lower classes were practicing their religion.

The Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, were favored by the elites. The Pharisees, who affirmed the resurrection and formed the basis of rabbinic Judaism, were more average joe. Paul, for example, was a Pharisee and a tent maker.

If you want to know what the average Joe thought of the resurrection, look to the Pharisees.

[Seabee1973]

People for thousands of years believed the world to be flat, and the Bible describes the flood as the the waters above the Earth and under the Earth flooding the Earth, well we know there aren't waters above the Earth, nor under the Earth; so what the author misunderstood the mechanics of the flood so I guess it didn't happen right? Wrong, just because people misunderstand the mechanics doesn't mean they didn't see what they saw.

I wonder if we talk to people about science if we'll find different levels of .

Guess Since there are no waters under the earth Geysers are myths

Old faithful?

How about this fresh water spring in the ocean

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9B04E7D91631E033A25752C2A9649C94639ED7CF

And these waters of the deep discovered in 1970s but your good history book has them mentioned

http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/deepsea/level-2/geology/vents.html