Ian McKellen says Bible should have Fiction Disclaimer

[MMC]

To be honest, there were only about 60 books total that weren't included in the Bible (that claimed to have been). Of these, only 5 were 'Gospels'. And none of those 5 actually said any 'news' per say, only the supposed sayings of Jesus and the apostles. Therefore they weren't even Gospels, by the official defenition.

[MMC]

Originally posted by Odin
The concept of the Seperation of Church and State is ultimately decended from St. Augustine's concept of the City of God vs. the City of Man, reinforced later on by power politics between the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, IIRC.

The Bible itself states that we should follow the rules of the State except where it would require us to go against our faith. Hence the quote:

Render to Cesear what is Cesear's and to God what is God's

[Flip McWho]

Who else would bother to record the history of the early church?

Course, but gotta keep the scepticism with you. The language strikes me that it could be heavily biased. Though that doesn't necessarily mean unreliable.

'Why do I not love you like her?' could easily mean 'Why do I not love you as much as her?'

I fail to see to much of a difference. How do you measure love?

But yeah, I don't know the context that the passage was taken from so cannot judge it fully.

The passage taken by itself definitely implies a relationship between mary and jesus that contained 'more love' than between Christ and John/disciples.

[Flip McWho]

The Bible itself states that we should follow the rules of the State except where it would require us to go against our faith.

I quite agree. Though as a political theory it wasn't taken seriously till whatshisname Odin mentioned put it forth in theological speak.

[Flip McWho]

But then nobody really took that all that seriously for many many years, as people like power. Regardless of your professed faith.

[MMC]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I'd love to quote protestants but they don't have nearly the breadth or depth of knowledge about the fathers of the church. I'm sorry if you don't like the source, but if you want to know about church history, it doesn't make sense to throw out the best sources.

Whilst I would be classed as Protestant, I would freely acknowledge the fact that Protestantism wasn't really around much before the middle ages. But then those quotes (whilst using Roman Catholic wording) are about a period of time from before even the RC church was around. Even Protestants acknowledge the Nicean Creed, much of which makes up the different Statements of Faith of different denominations.

[MMC]

hehe, to think this discussion managed to arise in the OT, not in the Civ4 fora.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Which leading Christians Jon?

They agreed that the books were written by their respective authors. Why else would they assign those names to the books rather then what they do for Hebrews where authorship is not known?

Iraneus for example did not beleive that Mathew was written by the disciple (if I remember correctly).

I think that is a claim of some protestants, not the catholics anywayd.

JM

[MMC]

A quote from my study bible (this is not scripture, this is the supporting notes which make it a study bible):

Ireneaus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, a Disciple of the Apostle John, testified on Polycarp's authority that John wrote this [John's] gospel. Subsequent to Ireneaus,all the church fathers assumed John to be the gospel's author.

I think that is a claim of some protestants,

And you must remember that 'some' does not mean 'all'.

EDIT: I know I'm talking about John and you're talking about Matthew, but surely John would have known who wrote it and that would have been passed down to Ireneaus.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
The question of which came first is perhaps less interesting than the question of which was most important; and it is for that question that the Minoans are a good place to look for an answer. Their tradition was very much matriarchal until the eruption at Santorini/Thera which f*cked up their agricultural economy, then trade, and led to the coming of the Mycenaeans and a relatively minor male God coming to the fore (presumably after the failure of female gods).

Why are the Minoans a good place to look? We know relatively little about them compared to other, older civilizations.

[Last Conformist]

They're a good place to look because Whaleboy thinks they support his preconceived conclusions.

[Whaleboy]

The reason the Jews had so many laws and traditions, was for the simple reason that no-one could keep them all. The whole point of the laws were to prove to the Jews that they had sinned and were not inherently worthy of God's love.

Wrong. The rules in Mosaic law are considered to be mitzvot, or blessings. The concept of sin -> redemption is somewhat alien to Judaism; it was an idea introduced to Christianity by none other than Gnostic influences!

Some (such as circumsision) are just downright pointless, as far as Christianity is concerned, because it's not a sign of your faith, it's a sign of your culture.

As far as Christianity is concerned yes, but that assumes that NT law supercedes OT law to the extent that one can pick and choose the rules you follow… in other words, if one is to accept your argument, the Christian is free to disregard Mosaic law, which would invalidate rules such as the ten commandments and many of the archaic rules in Leviticus. In other words, if you feel free to reject circumcision, then why not abandon the prejudice against homosexuals?

All religions throughout history insist that salvation comes through the works of the person, except Christianity. This basically means that if you do enough good deeds, you'll get into heaven (or the equivalent reward). This is true for Judaism, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism, Sikhism, etc...

No. “Reward” as a Christian doctrine, is alien to Hinduism whereby the nature of ones rebirth is proportional to their actions, and not prescriptive. In Judaism, the consequences of ones negative actions are considered to be a state of being distant from God but ones goes to heaven regardless, the “reward” is the same for all humans.

This is not the case with true Christianity. All you need to do is admit that you're a sinner and that you're truly sorry for what you've done, and accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour (and truly believe it), and you're saved... simple, no fuss, no mess.

A pretty good deal for a raping murdering paedophile

Also, 0 (that is zero, none, zip, nada, etc) of Dan Brown's ideas are original or revealing, except about Dan Brown himself. And don't forget that the Gnostic Gospels contain little to no history and are pretty much nothing more than collections of supposed sayings of Christ and the Apostles. Also, Gnosticism is not a contributing factor to Christianity, rather the other way around.

What I find interesting is that a self-proclaimed work of fiction seems to incite so much fear among Christians, as though people will believe it is true and not consider the bible to be true. They miss the real point of the book, which is to incite discussion about Jesus, and explain that Christianity has no monopoly on facts and interpretations of Christ. It is this climate of discussion and rational discourse that is the true enemy of literal Christians.

I consider attempts to debunk the factual basis of a self-proclaimed work of fiction as pedantry at best and a red herring at worst. Quite amusing however.

Not quite right.

Indeed, the church arbitrarily chose which books were to be included or not, based on the degree of their political convenience.

Paul's mission to the Gentiles for one.

That is a story; it’s not an element of early Christian thought, rather an example of it.

The whole idea of an atonement that could be a perfect sacrifice for sins is a direct breach between Christianity and Judaism.

Didn’t that start out as a Zoroastrian idea?

Finally you have the principle that we are to love thy neighbour. All the others espouse the principle that we are not to do harm to our neighbours, but Christ insists that not only are we to love them, we are to love our enemies too!

Roman troops were hot; it’s not surprising to find some man love in the New Testament.

Why are the Minoans a good place to look? We know relatively little about them compared to other, older civilizations.

They maintained an extensive trade network and thus contact with other civilizations. There are some comments from an Egyptian source that I can’t remember by heart at the moment, which refers to them selling luxury goods. It is their collapse that fascinates me though, and how their religion and society (which was matriarchal and pluralist) died and fell in line with Hellenistic customs. What you have then is the transition between a type of religion that we are generally unfamiliar with in the Western world, to the traditional Greek pantheon, and it is in this that I think we can see some examples of what is common to all religions, and what is merely idiosyncrasy.

[Whaleboy]

They're a good place to look because Whaleboy thinks they support his preconceived conclusions.

Not at all, my point is to support the notion that matriarchal religions are as ancient a phenomenon as patriarchal religions. That doesn't have much bearing on the validity of the bible however.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MRT144
and its awesome!!!

Except that Platonism is actually a reasonably coherent world view. Christianity is full of holes, and is vulgar and silly to boot.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
They maintained an extensive trade network and thus contact with other civilizations. There are some comments from an Egyptian source that I can’t remember by heart at the moment, which refers to them selling luxury goods. It is their collapse that fascinates me though, and how their religion and society (which was matriarchal and pluralist) died and fell in line with Hellenistic customs. What you have then is the transition between a type of religion that we are generally unfamiliar with in the Western world, to the traditional Greek pantheon, and it is in this that I think we can see some examples of what is common to all religions, and what is merely idiosyncrasy.

It's difficult to say with any certainty that they were matriarchal and pluralist, given the fact that their written language has not yet been translated. All we have are their pictures, which some have taken to show a matriarchal society.