Need some help this Argument. . .

[Guest]

So Jackal, what is your point? What are you hoping to accomplish?

[Guest]

So Jackal, what is your point? What are you hoping to accomplish?

A little entertainment, a little recreation, maybe something to pass a Saturday afternoon.

[Guest]

I can consider other alternatives and interpretations of these books, and take the evidence in those writings where they may lead.

I wish I had a nickle every time I heard that. OK jackal, give it your best shot. We would love to read your "other alternatives". Make it good because, you know, were just pretty smart around here.

[_SoaringEagle]

First, Jackal, you said Paul doesn’t directly mention the virgin birth. Yet what about the incarnation? Let’s look at that. John 3:13 and 3:31 speak of Jesus’ incarnation.

"No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man …"(John 3:13).

"He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all." (John 3:31).

Jesus Himself said He came down from heaven, which refers to His incarnation.

"For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." (John 6:33).

"For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." (John 6:38 ).

"I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world." (John 6:51)

Was Paul ignorant of this event? Absolutely not. For He mentioned this at least one for sure, if not twice.

"And so it is written, 'The first man Adam became a living being.' The last Adam became a life-giving spirit....The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven." (1 Corinthians 14:45-47).


For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9

So was Paul familiar with events of Jesus life along with other aspects of His life? I'd say yes. In fact, I'd say that Paul was indeed familiar with these things, and he was also familiar with the death burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ too. Let's see what He wrote about Jesus' life.

Gal. 3:16-- Jesus was born a Jew
Gal. 4:4 -- Jesus lived under Jewish Law
Rom. 1:3 -- Jesus was from the house of David
1 Cor. 9:5 -- Jesus had brothers
1 Cor. 15:7 -- One of his brother was James
1 Cor. 15:7 -- Jesus had twelve disciples
2 Cor. 8:9 -- Jesus was poor
1 Cor. 15:7 -- Some of Jesus' disciples had wives
Phil. 2:5 -- Jesus was a servant who acted with humility
2 Cor. 10:1 -- Jesus acted with meekness and gentleness
Rom. 15:3 -- Jesus didn't act on his own behalf, but was accused by others
Rom. 6:6 -- Jesus was crucified
Rom. 4:25 -- Paul speaks of Jesus' death
1 Thess 2:14-15 -- Jesus crucifixion was brought on by Jewish instigation
1 Cor. 5:7 -- Paul alludes to the Passion week
Rom. 8:34 -- Jesus is at God's right hand
Rom. 6:4, 8:29; Col. 2:12 -- Paul talks about the nature of the resurrection, presuming it's physicality. He compares the resurrection to baptism, thus giving implic testimony to the empty tomb.

I have more to write dealing with Paul's familiarity of the Historical Christ, but it will focus mostly of Jesus sayings and teachings which Paul shows in His epistles he was aware of. Perhaps you've seen them before, but for entertainment and edification, I will show them. In the mean-time, it does indeed appear that Paul was aware of the virgin birth. I mean, how could he know about the incarnation, but not know of the virgin birth?

[Guest]

A little entertainment, a little recreation, maybe something to pass a Saturday afternoon.

Very impressive Jackel, maybe you should try a poker site. God said in Duet that it takes 2 or 3 witnesses to establish the validity of testimony so we have 4 gospels which for the impartial seeker of truth are enough witnesses. So what Paul knew about Jesus historically does'nt change the validity of the gospel testimony at all. Paul had a specific mission and whatever he knew about the historical Jesus need not have been revealed to us because it was'nt his purpose, or it was'nt his calling since others had already revealed that. Btw "born of a women" is not an ordinary expression in fact i believe it's a Messianic expression.

[Guest]

First, Jackal, you said Paul doesn’t directly mention the virgin birth.
* * *
I mean, how could he know about the incarnation, but not know of the virgin birth?

In 2 Corinthians, Paul says Jesus, the second Adam, became a life-giving spirit. Nothing about a virgin birth of a human.

But more importantly, paul says in Gal 4:4 says that Jesus was "born of a woman, born of the law"

Born of a WOMAN? Duh! One of the two defining miracles that supposedly establishes the divinity of Jesus is the virgin birth, and Paul skips right over it. Did he not know that this woman was a virgin, and her name was Mary? The original Greek word from which "woman" is translated actually refers to a married woman. Sorry, but this tells me Paul didn't know of the virgin birth story.

Some apologists try to excuse this by saying that Paul's audience already knew this, and he didn't see the need to repeat it. Cripes, it was too mundane to mention his defining virgin birth to Mary, the chosen one, yet it somehow was compelling and important enough to mention he was born of a married woman?!

[_SoaringEagle]

You forgot the rest of the 2 Corinthians which Paul wrote "the second Man is the Lord from heaven". This does establish the incarnation, which it is pretty clear that that was what he implied and was referring to. If so (which there isn't much doubt or reason to believe otherwise), then this shows that Paul was aware of the virgin birth. Yet I think you know this.

One of the reasons Paul did not specifically go in depth is exactly as the apologists you've heard say. Yet, I'd like to add something. Think of a basketball team. You have a center, a power forward, a small forward, a point guard, and a shooting guard. They are together a team, but they each are individuals. Each one has a specific role and purpose. The center's role would focus on getting rebounds, stopping the defense in the paint, blocking, and getting points in the paint. A point guard's role would focus on ball handling, steals, assists, and points. Each are needed, and each have their own individal purpose that is distinguished from the others. Yet they together are a team. It is the same way with God's church, and the members, God's children individually, and the family of God.

Romans 12:4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. 6 Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; 7 or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; 8 he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

1 Corinthians 12:12
12 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. 14 For in fact the body is not one member but many. 15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? 16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? 18 But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. 19 And if they were all one member, where would the body be? 20 But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. 21 And the eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you"; nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." 22 No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. 23 And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, 24 but our presentable parts have no need. But God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, 25 that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another.

What this means is that God has placed members in His body for specific assignments and roles. Just as a hand is not expected to carry out the foots duties, Paul's letters shouldn't be expected to carry out the duties four gospels. In fact, to whine because he doesn't go into details like the gospels do about Jesus, is just like whining because a 7 foot center isn't doing the role of a point guard. It was not his role in his letters we have today. Yet do you think that Paul only wrote the letters we have, and that his teaching's outside of what we have didn't go into detail about these elements and details of Christ's life? You've already seen that none of the other general epistles mention much details about the event's of Christ's life. So I guess they were ignorant of all of that to. To suppose one doesn't know about an event because of not mentioning it when he could, doesn't guarantee one knows nothing about that event. To come to a final conclusion based on this displays nothing simliar to wisdom whatsoever. In fact, this just displays unnessessary skepticism and suspision.

Be blessed Jackal and I wish you well on your continuous journey for truth
S.E.

[_SoaringEagle]

Jackal,
The word "woman" here, in the KJV New Testament Greek Lexicon means 'gune' and is pronounced 'goo-nay'. It means

1)a woman of any age, whether a virgin, or married, or a widow,
2)a wife, of a betrothed woman

So it is not 100% percent that this word "woman" definately means Christ was born of a married woman. It could just as well mean born of a virgin.

[Guest]

Hi Jackal,

First, I think you know too little about my positions to comment on my motives. For reasons inexplicable to me, you characterize me as

"someone who is locked into one and only one interpretation of the books of the bible, who can read them only with spectacles having the correct shade of lens congruent with his orthodox dogma... You can only read them as the inerrant word of god, consistent and congruent with the orthodox dogma formulated centuries after these books were written..."

Apparenty, you have not read much of my positions at this forum.

Actually, I never said anything at all about the New Testament documents being the infallible word of God—any more than they say such things about themselves. I tend to take documents (whether ancient or modern) at face value until there is some excellent reason to discount the honesty or competence of the author (So do you, with the exception of those written by people whom you judge to be knee-jerk fundamentalists).

It is for this reason—not because of loyalty to "orthodox dogma"—that I accept many New Testament claims that you do not accept.

I accept the fact of Paul's close relationship to Luke, and Paul's own autobiographical information strictly because I find no reason to accuse Paul of lying about such things (what did he have to gain by lying, unless it was imprisonments, beatings, shipwrecks and martyrdom)?

He sure couldn't have been motivated by the money (since he worked a trade for his support and never charged his audiences for his Christian service). He did not do it for the women (since he remained celibate and constantly accountable to several traveling companions), nor for the popularity (he was the most unpopular of all the Christian preachers of his day).

Finding no motive in Paul to misrepresent the facts of his conversion or early life, and finding nothing in his writings that a reasonable man would find contradictory, or implausible, I exercise the same charity in my judgment of him that I exercise toward any other writer, including you. For this reason (not because of any presuppositions about the inspiration of Paul's writings, which he himself never claims) I do not doubt anything about his testimony.

Unlike yourself, apparently, I bring no prejudice to the question of whether genuine miracles can occur. Your default position concerning such things is obviously skepticism, and, apparently, hostility. I do not claim to have seen many stupendous miracles myself, but, apparently unlike yourself, I am open-minded enough to believe that others may have witnessed what I have not, and am willing to believe credible witnesses when they testify about things which I cannot verify from my own experience. I am, therefore, open-minded. You do not appear to be.

For example, a respectful reading of the gospels (stories that the authors apparently believed enough to die for), reveals that only about 39 days or so of the life of Jesus are recorded, out of a period of more than three years. You think it incredible that Jesus, on some of the days that are unrecorded, may have done things that you would find to be unreasonable of Him to do like some significant ministry in Sidon, before crossing to Decapolis.

Jesus can be full of surprises. You admit that you find His attitude toward the Canaanite "uncharacteristic." What other "uncharacteristic" things might He have done in the thousand unrecorded days of His ministry? Could He not have gone to Sidon (why not? because you think this to be uncharacteristic of Him?)? Might He not have taken weeks to take a circuitous route to Decapolis? Why not? Since He surprised you with His treatment of the Cannanite woman, might He not do other things that you would not have predicted? And if He did do so, how would we know? By deciding how likely or unlikely we may imagine it to be, or by consulting the record left by His friends, who accompanied Him on His trip?

Despite the fact that many historians believe one thing or another about the original reading of Mark, the fact remains that changes in Mark's account (at 5:1) have entered the text through copyist errors, and we have no way of knowing how early such may have occurred. For all we know, the original may have said "Gergasenes" which was corrupted to Gadarenes and Gerasenes in all the surviving manuscripts of Mark, but preserved only in a few manuscripts of Matthew.

I am not arguing that this happened. I am simply saying that there is no compelling reason to say that it did not, whereas it seems to me (perhaps not to you) extremely unlikely that a man unfamiliar with the Palestinian geography, and attempting to produce a convincing narrative, would bother to insert place names of locations of which he had no awareness of their whereabouts. Why would any literary man in the Roman world, who knew of the existence of these places (enough to name them) not have access to information concerning their whereabouts?

If Mark did not know enough of the geography to accurately identify the places by name, there was always the option open to him simply to say "a certain village" or "into the countryside" or "on the far side of Lake Genesaret" (as was not uncommonly done in the gospels), and to avoid being caught in a blatant fabrication made unnecessarily.

I have not read Origin's actual comments on this (though I will). However, it does not seem obvious that his being aware of the geographical problems in the existing text of Mark 5:1 would necessarily translate into his concluding that Mark had not written the second gospel. If I am mistaken, I will be pleased to be corrected about this.

I might add that I am not what any fundamentalist would recognize as one of his own camp. I do not consider, however, that the Roman Catholic Church is a theologically conservative institution (though they may be socially conservative, that is a very different matter). The Catholic Church has changed its doctrine and added new doctrines dozens of times throughout its history, and does not currently embrace a conservative position (as they did a few generations ago) on biblical criticism. Since a great number of top-ranking biblical scholars find the arguments of historical criticism unconvincing, I do not find the citation fromj Roman Catholic authority to be that of a conservative source.

Your hostility has been less veiled in your recent response than in your original posts. In fact, I assume that it is this malice that blinded you to the point of making, without warrant, this absurd charge:

"I was wondering how long is [sic] would take for the typical fundy accusations of lieberalism [sic] to surface. lol."

The statement of mine to which you are responding reads as follows:

"Your survey of the Galatians material is so irresponsible as to make me wonder about your honesty."

I did not accuse you in this comment of "lieberalism" at all. I questioned your honesty based upon your irresponsible and biased handling of the Galatian accounts. If you believe that "lieberal" and "dishonest" are equivalent terms, then I can understand your reaction (although I have not been a "fundy" for over 25 years). Otherwise, it seems a further example of your irresponsible handling of written statements.

You wrote:

"I do not use my own eisegesis to force what Paul says into a dogma that I must uphold and defend with closed-minded diligence and allegance. I analyse what Paul says, and try to see what he is implying and inferring, without the bias of a dogma developed centuries after Paul to which Paul's teachings must conform."

In comparing this description of your methods with your whole demonstrated approach to Paul's material and testimony, I find a major disconnect. Nothing I have written here imposes any meaning on Paul's words that derives from "a dogma developed centuries after Paul." I simply read Paul with the same candor and open-mindedness that his original readers should have done—and do not accuse him, without warrant, of lying.

In most cases, it is not necessary to speculate about what Paul "is implying and inferring," since the majority of his writing has no hidden meanings at all. Paul did not veil his meanings, as Moses did (2 Cor.3:12-13).

The truth is that intelligent scholars, for most of 2000 years, were able to observe the same phenomena in the gospels and in Paul's writings that are observable today, and without resorting to irrationality, were able to maintain that the accounts were reliable.

The modern bias against the records, I believe, does not arise from compelling new discoveries, but from new theories that better fit the philosophical sentiments of modern Westerners. You think you see slavish adherence to orthodoxy in my arguments; I think I see slavish parrotting of the new orthodoxy in yours.

You certainly cannot seriously suggest that, in championing your viewpoint about the unreliability of Paul's writings, you are getting this from a straightforward and honest reading of his words alone. Rather, it seems obvious to me that your views on Paul's writings are the result of your having imbibed "a dogma developed centuries after Paul."

[Guest]

Jackel wrote:

But more importantly, paul says in Gal 4:4 says that Jesus was "born of a woman, born of the law"

Born of a WOMAN?

Are you aware of the fact that the early church had to combat the heresy that Jesus was not human, that He "came in the flesh"? It ought to be obvious why there would be an emphasis on "born of a woman". There is much emphasis in the scriptures on the humanity of Jesus, notably His oft used phrase for Himself "the Son of Man".

The kind of evidence(?) you cite wouldn't get far in a court of law. Paul didn't mention something so that supposedly proves he didn't know about it! Brilliant! I've written many posts here but I don't believe I've ever mentioned the virgin birth so that proves I never heard of it either! Paul never mentioned Matthew so Paul didn't believe Matthew existed! We can really be enlightened by this method!