The epistles of John.

[SerenelyBlue]

How can you not believe in Jesus if you have the letters of one of his disciples, John?  It is a man who claims to have interacted with the risen Christ.  And there are letters from his brother James and Peter.  How do I ignore this evidence and do I not believe in the risen Christ?

[SerenelyBlue]

I am agnostic.  I ask this as an agnostic.

[disillusioned]

It isn't clear that John actually wrote those books.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Johannine_works

 

Even if he did, though,  it doesn't follow that they were written truthfully. Put simply,  they can be rejected as easily as any other "holy" text from any other tradition.

 

[SerenelyBlue]

There are always scholars who doubt authenticity.  Isn't it very convenient to have it that way?

[TruthSeeker0]

32 minutes ago, SerenelyBlue said:

There are always scholars who doubt authenticity.  Isn't it very convenient to have it that way?

No, it's not convenient. It's the way that historians operate. The Bible isn't exempt from scholarly critique and examination. Anyone with a degree in history knows that yes we all have biases but when we are seeking to obtain as unbiased of a conclusion as possible we put our own beliefs aside. And I would argue that many Christian scholars are unable to do this. 

[TruthSeeker0]

SB you can believe in Jesus all you want. It could be that he did exist. If he did, so what? That is completely separate from any claim that he was a son of god, or that god exists. It doesn't follow that those claims are true simply because a Jew named Jesus may have existed. You should read about the development of Christianity in the early years to understand how those claims came to be. 

[Astreja]

There's a simple solution to your problem, Serenely Blue:  See the Bible as a work of fiction rather than history.  Fiction is not evidence and can just be ignored.

[sdelsolray]

On 9/2/2018 at 8:09 AM, SerenelyBlue said:

How can you not believe in Jesus if you have the letters of one of his disciples, John?

...

Quite easily, particularly the sky fairy mythology and related nonsense.

 

...

It is a man who claims to have interacted with the risen Christ.

...

So what?  Many actual humans, past and present, have made and make all sorts of claims.  I am particularly skeptical of sky fairy claims such as the ones you suggest.

 

...
And there are letters from his brother James and Peter.

...

More of the same.  I am simply not convinced from these sources.  Fiction is like that.

 

...

How do I ignore this evidence and do I not believe in the risen Christ?

Your question is directed to yourself.  Perhaps you should answer it.

[LogicalFallacy]

You meaning the same John that wrote Revelations?

 

7 headed dragons, Babylonian harlots, and cities of gold?

[SerenelyBlue]

3 hours ago, LogicalFallacy said:

You meaning the same John that wrote Revelations?

 

7 headed dragons, Babylonian harlots, and cities of gold?

They were symbolic.

[LogicalFallacy]

2 hours ago, SerenelyBlue said:

They were symbolic.

 

And a dead man resurrecting wasn't symbolic?

[Hierophant]

On 9/3/2018 at 12:09 AM, SerenelyBlue said:

How can you not believe in Jesus if you have the letters of one of his disciples, John?  It is a man who claims to have interacted with the risen Christ.  And there are letters from his brother James and Peter.  How do I ignore this evidence and do I not believe in the risen Christ?

 

SB:

 

There are a lot of scholars who actually think John's gospel is a very gnostic writing which incorporates a very high Christology not seen in the synoptic gospels. 

 

Most believe the epistles of Peter are fakes, meaning someone wrote them and slapped the name Peter on it to give it more credibility.

 

I know what you are looking for right now is some real answers, answers that go into depth on why scholars actually think these writings were not first hand witnesses to the events described. Robert M. Price has a podcast called The Human Bible, you can download 35 episodes for free, but the rest you have to be a Patreon supporter. 

 

I bring this up because I have a good idea of the position you are in right now. You only know one way of framing the Bible, likely because you have been taught your whole life to see it one way. Listening to Dr. Price's podcast really opened my eyes and gave me the ability to start viewing the Bible more critically and to tease out different ways to read a passage.

 

I did have a question for you in return, in James, it states that if anyone is sick, the elders should anoint the sick one with oil and pray over them, and they will be healed....have you ever seen anything like that happen? In my 15 years of fundamentalism, I never came close to seeing that particular verse being put to the test....and for good reason. If this is indeed bogus, should we take anything else in James seriously? Also, I cannot believe the weak harmonization argument that James and Paul were saying the same thing when it comes to works, they were not. I would advocate they were not even playing the same game. If we want to be real about it, James had a very Jewish way (like the gospel of Matthew) of living Christianity and Paul did not. Perhaps James and his church were the ones Paul warned about in Galations? It's observations and questions like these that broke the spell of reading the Bible as I was indoctrinated to read it and started to critically analyze it.

 

Reading the Bible as a fundamentalist is a really weird kind of exercise. How many times do you gloss over a passage and think, "oh, that's how it used to be," or "no, that does not apply anymore," or "what does that even mean." You read back into the Bible what your 21st century theology tells you to understand opposed to letting the text speak for itself. 

 

Getting past this part of the thinking trap is really difficult, I know, I was in it for a long time.

[SerenelyBlue]

1 hour ago, TinMan said:

 

SB:

 

There are a lot of scholars who actually think John's gospel is a very gnostic writing which incorporates a very high Christology not seen in the synoptic gospels. 

 

Most believe the epistles of Peter are fakes, meaning someone wrote them and slapped the name Peter on it to give it more credibility.

 

I know what you are looking for right now is some real answers, answers that go into depth on why scholars actually think these writings were not first hand witnesses to the events described. Robert M. Price has a podcast called The Human Bible, you can download 35 episodes for free, but the rest you have to be a Patreon supporter. 

 

I bring this up because I have a good idea of the position you are in right now. You only know one way of framing the Bible, likely because you have been taught your whole life to see it one way. Listening to Dr. Price's podcast really opened my eyes and gave me the ability to start viewing the Bible more critically and to tease out different ways to read a passage.

 

I did have a question for you in return, in James, it states that if anyone is sick, the elders should anoint the sick one with oil and pray over them, and they will be healed....have you ever seen anything like that happen? In my 15 years of fundamentalism, I never came close to seeing that particular verse being put to the test....and for good reason. If this is indeed bogus, should we take anything else in James seriously? Also, I cannot believe the weak harmonization argument that James and Paul were saying the same thing when it comes to works, they were not. I would advocate they were not even playing the same game. If we want to be real about it, James had a very Jewish way (like the gospel of Matthew) of living Christianity and Paul did not. Perhaps James and his church were the ones Paul warned about in Galations? It's observations and questions like these that broke the spell of reading the Bible as I was indoctrinated to read it and started to critically analyze it.

 

Reading the Bible as a fundamentalist is a really weird kind of exercise. How many times do you gloss over a passage and think, "oh, that's how it used to be," or "no, that does not apply anymore," or "what does that even mean." You read back into the Bible what your 21st century theology tells you to understand opposed to letting the text speak for itself. 

 

Getting past this part of the thinking trap is really difficult, I know, I was in it for a long time.

Thank you for your kind and insightful answer.

[Hierophant]

8 hours ago, SerenelyBlue said:

Thank you for your kind and insightful answer.

 

Any time. I saw your post and wanted to respond, but I did not have any resource material in front of me. As I stated earlier, I am fairly certain I know where you are mentally because of the way you framed that question. I am guessing right now you have doubts, but you are still not able to see the Bible any differently than you did before because the Evangelical glasses of which you viewed the world are the only ones that help to see it clearly, or so you believe. 

 

Part of the fundamentalist party line is giving the Bible all kinds of authority, i.e., inerrancy. Just to get you started, did you ever realize there are two different sets of "The 10 Commandments?" No kidding, look at Exodus 34 (I forget the verses), literally lays out 10 different commandments than the ones you see everyone raving about as being the pillars of civilization. Most people (Christians) have no idea what the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20 (or is it 22) even say, let alone what they may mean. For example, what does it mean that "Thou shall not have any other gods before me." In the 21st century theology, the church would say this means that you should not put material possessions over God, your idols if you will. But would have ancient people have understood that, especially ones that supposedly just came from Egypt (zero archeological evidence that over a million muldoons troped through the desert for 40 years) where they were exposed to multitudes of gods. In this case, might the Bible actually implicitly indicate there other gods but YHWH is the God if Israel? Also, what about taking God's name in vain. This might simply mean not swearing an oath in the name of YHWH and then backing out. Think about it, God is simply a title, it is not a name. So if you swear and use the title God, how is that taking God's name in vain? My point is, you have been told time and time again what "truth" is and I just made an example of how that is not so.

 

Read Psalm 137 (if anyone has the verses handy, feel free to provide them. Again, I do not have my stuff in front of me). In it, the author talks about smashing little ones against rocks in revenge for the Babylon conquer and exile....does that sound like divine inspiration or some guy who's village was ransacked.

 

In Isaiah, the author includes this speech where YHWH states he gave Israel commandments that were horrible and unbearable (probably relating to the child sacrifice of the firstborn) so that they may know he is the Lord......what!? Convenient how modern day theology just passes this one right over. 

 

All this talk of love and I am always asking who in the world they are talking about, because that does not describe Jesus or YHWH.

[♦ ficino ♦]

My hypothesis so far is that Peter/Cephas had a vision that Jesus had risen. I think he had this after intensive study of the OT to try to find verses that seemed to talk about a suffering messiah (because his leader had just been crucified and he was devastated). Then other disciples claimed to have seen visions, too. Their enthusiasm was infectious within their group.

 

Two generations later, a back story had arisen about the resurrection. With women witnesses and lots of other details not found in the earliest apparent testimony, I Cor 15.

 

 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

On 9/2/2018 at 11:09 AM, SerenelyBlue said:

How do I ignore this evidence and do I not believe in the risen Christ?

First, ask yourself what evidence you have that this is actually evidence.

[Joshpantera]

On 9/2/2018 at 11:09 AM, SerenelyBlue said:

How can you not believe in Jesus if you have the letters of one of his disciples, John?  It is a man who claims to have interacted with the risen Christ.  And there are letters from his brother James and Peter.  How do I ignore this evidence and do I not believe in the risen Christ?

 

SB, maybe go over this video from Alan Watt's about John's gospel: