Jews for Jesus

[Zealot]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
You are missing the point. Jesus claimed that he could forgive sins, something only God could do; to prove it, he healed the paralytic as a sign of authority--one that GOD would NOT allow him to provide if he were lying. The Apostles certainly healed as well, as a sign of their authority--which they used to proclaim the truth of Jesus as God.

Why do you say only God could forgive sins and don't think "Christ really IS the Son of God! He was given the authority to heal and forgive!"
If you really read my argumentations, or even studied a little deep the Scriptures, there's no way you would say that Jesus is Jehovah! The hole idea is so absurd! Why would Jesus die then? Why would his "blood" serve as a ransom for humanity? Who would get that ransom then?

[Imran Siddiqui]

I have to agree mostly with Natan, Jesus doesn't fulfill the requirements of the Messiah.

In fact, I personally believe, that the whole Jesus story was hyped up. There is evidence that Paul, who formed the Church after Jesus, was heavily influenced by pagan ideals and used them to convert Romans to Christianity. For example, Christmas and Easter are BOTH on pagan holidays (Easter comes from the rising of Istar, the Egyptian God... and Christmas, everyone knows, is on a pagan holiday). Plenty of pagan religions in the Empire had the story of a man of divine birth, coming from a virgin mother, who dies and rises again. In fact, the Babylonian God story of Gilgamesh holds plenty of these. The Buddha story (800 years before Christ) tells of immaculate conception. It seems pretty obvious to me that Paul made Jesus into something he wasn't, in order for conversion purposes.

[chequita guevara]

Or Saul accomplished exactly what he set out to do, destroy early Christianity. After all, we only have his word for it that he changed.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Good point. I never even thought about that.

[Zealot]

Imran, you know so much about paganism in Christianity and you blame it on Paul?

Did you know that Christmas was celebrated only from III/IV CE centuries? And that the easter bunny is the symbol of fertility of a barbaric religion that invaded the Western Roman Empire? And the Christmas tree is also from another pagan tribe that invaded the western roman empire, and it symbolizes prosperity?

How could one blame Paul, when he was followed by Luke, Peter, and some other apostles and disciples who lived with Christ?

[Zealot]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Or Saul accomplished exactly what he set out to do, destroy early Christianity. After all, we only have his word for it that he changed.

The Apostle who wrote Acts was Luke, not Paul...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Zealot
Imran, you know so much about paganism in Christianity and you blame it on Paul?

Did you know that Christmas was celebrated only from III/IV CE centuries? And that the easter bunny is the symbol of fertility of a barbaric religion that invaded the Western Roman Empire? And the Christmas tree is also from another pagan tribe that invaded the western roman empire, and it symbolizes prosperity?

How could one blame Paul, when he was followed by Luke, Peter, and some other apostles and disciples who lived with Christ?

Paul has a lot of blame to share, and being a scholar of paganism before becoming a Christian knew of the rituals. And he was the one that did a lot of it.

[The Mad Monk]

Or Saul accomplished exactly what he set out to do, destroy early Christianity. After all, we only have his word for it that he changed.

No. We have Peter's as well:

"Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."

2 Peter 3:15,16

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Paul has a lot of blame to share, and being a scholar of paganism before becoming a Christian knew of the rituals. And he was the one that did a lot of it.

How can you accuse Paul of the Christmas and Easter cellebrations be on a Pagan God day, when they started to be celebrated long time after the death of all the Apostles? Why don't you blame waht was the beginning of the 'Catholic' church, when it started miximg christianity with power, greek philosophies, and popular pagan celebrations?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Zealot
How can you accuse Paul of the Christmas and Easter cellebrations be on a Pagan God day, when they started to be celebrated long time after the death of all the Apostles? Why don't you blame waht was the beginning of the 'Catholic' church, when it started miximg christianity with power, greek philosophies, and popular pagan celebrations?

Seeing as Paul started the 'Catholic' Church, I say I am blaming it .

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Seeing as Paul started the 'Catholic' Church, I say I am blaming it .

Ok, that was funny...

But study a little on the catholic church beginning, and you'll see it appeared a couple of centuries after the death of all Apostles, ok?

[The Mad Monk]

Paul was also executed, by order of the Emporer (Nero?). The Catholisism of today started well after that, when the leaders of the Church made the mistake of getting into the politics of Rome.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes, the church (as we know it) appeared after the Paul, yet he basically formulated the church, it just could come into being until after he died.

[The Mad Monk]

"Paul's formulation" did not include deification-in-all-but-name of Mary, the elevation of saints as practical-minor-deities and intercessories to God (he said himself that we are all priests, and need no intercessor save Christ), or the formation of a celibate priesthood (his marriage requirements for Bishops sort of put the kibosh on that).

edit: sleepy now--good night.

[Seeker]

Alright, we have a vast morass of crap that people have been killing each other about for thousands of years....so lets just focus on one thing,

Kingship.

The Messiah must be a King of the House of David.

God promises David that only his heirs would ever be the rightful Kings of Israel, forever.

Kingship is passed through the father. If David had had a son and a daughter, then son of that daughter (his grandson) could never be the rightful king of Israel.

The fact that Mary may or may not have been 'of the Seed of David' is irrelevant. Even if Mary was David's very daughter, her son could never claim to be King.

PS: What is this thing about 'fulfilling' and Jesus? Christians seem to use a different meaning when using this word...
If the law says 'you cannot cross the road', and I cross the road, how can I claim to have 'fulfilled' the law in any sense??
And yet Jesus claims to have 'fulfilled' the law by disobeying it...

CyberShy: Those passages have Jesus claiming to be the Son of God. The bible refers many times to Sons of God who are not God. Jesus was the 'Son of God' in the same way you or I am.

What I think happened: A Jewish zealot falsely claiming to be the Messiah was condemned. He made a few converts, who intially bent most of their efforts to converting other Jews. They were spectacularly unsuccessful in this. However, a few of these cultists were Greeks/Romans, and found that the message 'sold' really well to Romans and Greeks if they added the idea of a Man-God and a few other non-Jewish concepts (i.e. total depravity, grace, original sin, trinity)