A Sincere Question For The Christians Who Post Here

[L.B.]

In the "god spiel" of "John", chapter 5, we read:

 

5 After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.

3 In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.

4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

 

My questions are these:

 

If you sincerely believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of your god, what theology do you hold concerning angels? Why are there no angels performing or participating in the opportunity for miracles like this story sets forth?

 

What fundamentally changed in "god's" spiritual economy (or his "will") so that nowadays angels do not interact with the world as they did in the bible story?

 

I submit that the angel story is a bullshit folk tale that was believed by everyone in Jesus' community. I believe that it was deliberately used to set up the idea that Jesus really had magical powers because he was able to do what he did without the agency of the well-known "angel".

 

This is another place where the folk-tale writers of the bible stories needed to ground purely invented bullshit in some kind of place-and-time setting - naturally, just as the Bronze-Age tribesmen of the OT saw red clouds in the evening and called them "pillars of fire", or saw a certain kind of bush and deduced that it's "burning" was a sign of a god, the inventers of the Jesus stories used a widely-held 1st-century superstition to juxtapose their caca story about Jesus healing people.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.  

Genesis chapter 6

 

The reason "angels" are no longer allowed to participate in the affairs of this world is because god can't keep them from fucking our women.

[L.B.]

That makes me think of another question: how come there are no people who have done their families' genealogies and discovered that they descend from the giants in the OT, or the half-angel/half-human beings you just referenced?

 

Where is any archaeological evidence for the giants, or any historical evidence for the super-humans that the bible references?

[TheRedneckProfessor]

That makes me think of another question: how come there are no people who have done their families' genealogies and discovered that they descend from the giants in the OT, or the half-angel/half-human beings you just referenced?

 

Where is any archaeological evidence for the giants, or any historical evidence for the super-humans that the bible references?

Because immediately after this, god decides to destroy the entire world through a massive flood, allegedly because of mankind's "evil".  But maybe what he really wanted to destroy was the evidence of what his "sons" had done.

[rjn]

Several "occult" movements throughout history (well, in truth, mostly since the late 19th century) have claimed to be the descendants of the Nephilim, either symbolically or literally. The idea is that this would somehow make them special little snowflakes with greater spiritual/divine potential or some such nonsense. Several conspiracy theories dealing with "secret bloodlines" and "the occult elite" are based on the same ideas, and quite a few fundy apocalyptic preachers have latched onto the whole thing. 

[Storm]

John 10:16: I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

 

I once had a discussion with a Christian who told me that Jesus' reference to the "other sheep" were those who were the descendants of the Nephilim and the women they slept with in the passage you mentioned Prof. He had a very detailed list of references and he adamantly believed it hardcore. He was an interesting feller...

[rjn]

John 10:16: I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

 

I once had a discussion with a Christian who told me that Jesus' reference to the "other sheep" were those who were the descendants of the Nephilim and the women they slept with in the passage you mentioned Prof. He had a very detailed list of references and he adamantly believed it hardcore. He was an interesting feller...

 

What's the mainstream approach then? To me, the "other sheep" looks like a rather obvious reference to Gentiles, but what do I know?

[Storm]

 

John 10:16: I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.

 

I once had a discussion with a Christian who told me that Jesus' reference to the "other sheep" were those who were the descendants of the Nephilim and the women they slept with in the passage you mentioned Prof. He had a very detailed list of references and he adamantly believed it hardcore. He was an interesting feller...

 

What's the mainstream approach then? To me, the "other sheep" looks like a rather obvious reference to Gentiles, but what do I know?

 

This conversation was more than 20 years ago, so I don't really remember all the stuff he used to argue. I just remember the lengthy discussion we had about it. I basically told him what you just stated and he disagreed. I certainly cannot say he was mainstream. I don't even remember what church he went to.