chefranden Posted August 20, 2006 Share Posted August 20, 2006 John 8 1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" 11"No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin." If you look at the footnotes in your bible you will probably find the info that this story of the woman taken in adultery was not in the original gospel. Nevertheless, few Christians notice that according to doctrine, Jesus is the one that ordered women like this to be stoned in the first place. According to the story the onus is neatly put on the men that brought her. If Jesus had changed his mind as to whether he wanted such women stoned or not, he could have just said to the men, "I changed my mind about this, leave her alone." One the one hand Jesus ordered such women to be put to death, on the other hand he lets this one off the hook. He makes the men who wish to obey him (though they don't know who he is really, and have no way of knowing) look stupid. Why doesn't he have compassion on them as well as the woman? As far as the men having been sinners themselves, did God/Jesus expect that those that would carry out the judgement of this law that he made would be sinless? What about all the women that were stoned before this one was set free? Why didn't God see that they got off the hook, if he really didn't want them stoned like he said he wanted? This story doesn't make a lick of sense, unless Jesus is only human. If he is only human then he is defying God in this story. If the Jesus in this story is only human, then I hold him in high esteem for doing what I would hope to have the courage to do in the face of oppressive religion. If Jesus in this story is God then I don't have much space in my heart for him. As God he seems to need a God psychologist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crunk Bishop Posted August 20, 2006 Share Posted August 20, 2006 a great example of the classical Greek theistic problem called "Euthyphro's Dilemma!" According to Plato's Euthyphro, Socrates confounded a young theologian named Euthyphro (who wants to prosecute his own father for the accidental murder of a slave) with the following marque' problem: "is something holy (or right) because it is endorsed by the gods, or do the gods endorse something because it is 'holy?'" (Euthyphro also insisted that for something to be holy, then all of the gods would have to agree... so the "unified agreement" of the Greek gods becomes our test case for monotheism.) if the first point is true, then the "gods" are just making up the rules arbitrarily as they go along... (as Jesus seems to be doing), or if the second point is true... then the "holy" is a essence or state which is higher than the gods... a standard to which they must aspire... making them "not gods." So, either God (as Jesus) made it all up, or he needs (as Socrates says in [/i]Euthryphro) "therapy" to become better aligned with the universal standard of holiness. Or... personal monotheism is completely untenable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snookums Posted August 21, 2006 Share Posted August 21, 2006 or perhaps the guys who wrote the damn story could get their story straight! It seems to be a reflection of too many cooks spoiling the broth. All those 'prophets'...would tend make it hard to design a 'holy' man...without that kind of 'fracturing'...or 'imprefection'. the pity is...that current or practising xians don't see it that way....'that god need a god head shrink'.. isn't there a verse somewhere...saying that there are too many gods..or more than one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crunk Bishop Posted August 21, 2006 Share Posted August 21, 2006 yep, lots of examples of poly-type theisms are going on in the OT. 1. Why does Gawd command "no other gods" if there aren't any to begin with? 2. Why does Joshua talk about the "gods of Abraham's father" from the other side of the Jordan river in Joshua 24? 3. Why does the work of a witch (necromancer) succeed in conjuring up Samuel in 1 Sam 28, if all that stuff is so "darksided" and fake? 4. Why is one of the Hebrew biblical words for "God," Elohim plural? 5. Why the "contest" between the Ark of the Covenant and Dagon in 1 Sam 5. 6. Why do all of the plagues of Egypt seem to punk a particular Egyptian gods? Here's one of my favorites from Archaeology. In Northern Israel, they discovered an ancient cave painting which dates back to the times of the Northern Israelite monarchy (c. 800 BCE). In the picture, two individuals are shown side by side in regal lion apparel... the caption says all kinds of stuff about "Yahweh and his Asherah," implying that the two of them were consorts or lovers... a common Canaanite/pagan idea about gods: http://www.theology.bham.ac.uk/guest/Ancie...ael/asherah.htm actually a well balanced article! And then there's the NT: 1. John 8 is a great example. Pretty much anything in John is great because that's the only gospel of the Big 4 in which Jesus runs around claiming to be God. 2. Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane is great! Who's he talkin' to? (As Arius pointed out 1700 years ago) 3. Why does Jesus sit at the right hand of God when he is God? ("sitting by the right hand of God" a motif of the cosmic kurios from the Mysteries and also an ANE prince image) 4. (Also Arius) "Sons" are usually subordinate to "Fathers" Can't even start on the schizo-trinity! oh, and the guys who wrote it couldn't get their damn stories straight! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostOrFound Posted August 21, 2006 Share Posted August 21, 2006 As for the plurality of Elohim and other places god refers to himself in the plural, the standard evangelical literalist's answer is that this is "proof" of the trinity. -- Just another of the many weak arguments that caused me to question the bible and ultimately leave the ministry and then to reject the one final god I had held onto. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snookums Posted August 21, 2006 Share Posted August 21, 2006 Yes....the 'appologist' will argue "until the cows come home" about all that...I've discovered that the Jewish 'appologists are no different to the xian appologist.... here's a small sample:- about the term elohim: The name Elohim is unique to Hebraic thinking: it occurs only in Hebrew and in no other ancient Semitic language. The masculine plural ending does not mean “gods” when referring to the true God of Israel, since the name is mainly used with singular verb forms and with adjectives and pronouns in the singular (e.g., see Gen. 1:26). However, considering the Hashalush HaKadosh (Trinity), the form indeed allows for the plurality within the Godhead. www.hebrew4christians.com/Names_of_G-d/Elohim/elohim.html about Elohim being plural. I know it is plural, despite some claims of it being not, since the adjective kedosh when describing it in Leviticus 19:2 is rendered Kedoshim which can only be plural. What does this say about the conceptions of Yahweh (also mentioned earlier in Lev. 19:2)? Commonly, it is said to be the majestic plural, i.e. using plural if speaking to and/or about some noble person (or god). This practice can be found in German in formal speech to someone else: Sie wissen - you know, lit. they know. Religion of Israel at the time of Moses was not monotheistic. It was henotheistic. They worshipped one god among many other gods. To stop this practice, priests probably named god of Israel ELOHIM -> gods. anyone familiar with the henotheism, the German Sie and French Vous are usually limited to second person singular with respect while Elohim seems to be all-encompassing. How do the modern Jews apologize for this? Or are they aware of their henotheistic (and probably further back polytheistic) past? ```````````````````````` I'm glad my clear cut and simple english has brought some joy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mr. XC Posted August 22, 2006 Share Posted August 22, 2006 If you look at the footnotes in your bible you will probably find the info that this story of the woman taken in adultery was not in the original gospel. Maybe they were adding it in because one of the prior tellings of Jesus, such as Crishna had this story too? See this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=64...th%22&hl=en It has a long introduction to the video program. The research part of the program begins at 23 minutes 23 seconds. If you want to skip to Crishna, it is at 42 minutes 7 seconds. Here is a good start for research on Crishna: http://www.innvista.com/culture/religion/deities/crishna.htm http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/scriptures/ww...are/crishna.htm http://www.truthbeknown.com/kcrucified.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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