The sin of gluttony

[Iceweasel]

I found it. Nicodemus was the creme de la creme of the Pharisees. The only person the Jews set above him was the High Priest. He didn't understand the things Jesus said, so he would sneak out of the Temple at night to question Christ. He ended up a believer. Here's what he and some others wrote down pertaining to the event of Christ's return.
Here is my earlier post:

When Christ died, He didn't ascend, He descended.

Matthew 12:40 “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

Christ was never buried in the earth, and He wasn't sleeping but conscious and proclaiming to those also in the heart of the earth, who He was.
Remember Christ telling the thief that he would be in Paradise? When Christ died He went to Abraham's bosom, also called Paradise, where the souls of those who followed God waited for Christ to break through the barrier of death. Abraham's bosom has also been translated as Abraham's side, because on the other side, separated by a deep chasm, were those souls that had relied on their sun god, or themselves, and did not believe or heed the prophets God had sent them.
Luke 16:19-31

As beloved as they were, and as well kept as God kept them until Christ's arrival, no one goes to the Father except through Christ. So they had to wait. Once Christ took possession of the keys to the gate of death, there is no need to wait. We go straight up.
And in the coming rapture, rising along with the living in Christ, those souls having died after Christ, will reunite with their bodies at the same time, because we are coming back from Heaven with Christ when He returns for good.

It''s in the Bible so it's true...it's true because it's in the Bible....blah blah blah. Is that the best you can do?

The trip, according to the Bible, happens in a twinkling of the eye, < the Biblical time used to describe the coming rapture. That is not a blink, it's the time it takes light to reach the back of our eye. Scientists measured it at 11/100th of a sec.

LOL.

Christ proclaimed who He was to those on the other side. But, He did not empty out Hades. Only those in Abraham's arms came back with Him. Not all graves opened when Christ died, just those who were going to need their bodies back. They all stayed here, (about 12,000 men + the women and children that the Jews didn't count) on earth for forty days, and they all ascended with Christ, to Heaven.

Matthew 27:52-53 and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

Christ led the resurrection and the ascension. Like a train. They were two separate events.
Eph.4:7-9

Here are some accounts of the two events from antiquity manuscripts outside of the Bible:


Clement of Alexandria:


The fragments of the lost writings of Irenaeus speak of the Resurrection:

" This event was also an indication of the fact that when the Holy body of Christ descended into Hades, many souls ascended,
<(from Hades to Jerusalem, not to Heaven yet) and were seen in their bodies the heavy and terrestrial part, having been rendered immortal, was borne up to Heaven, after the resurrection." <(the ascension to Heaven)

Repeating what you heard makes it true. Oh boy.

Of all the antiquity accounts in the Ante-Nicene Library, The Latin version of Nicodemus is the most
complete. In a Jewish court of Law, a fact is established by 2 or more eye witnesses.
Here are 3:

Then Rabbi Addas and Rabbi Finees, and Rabbi Egias, the three men who had come from Galilee, testifying that they had seen Jesus taken up into heaven, rose up in the midst of the multitude of the chiefs of the Jews, and said before the priests and the Levites, who had been called together to the council of the Lord:
"When we were coming from Galilee we met at the Jordan a very great multitude of men, fathers who had been some time dead"...And they went, and walked around all the region of the Jordan and of the mountains, and they were coming back without finding them. And, behold, suddenly there appeared coming down from Mount Amalech a very great number, as it were, twelve thousand men, who had risen with the Lord. And though they recognized very many there, they were not able to say anything to them for fear and the angelic vision; and they stood at a distance gazing and hearing them, how they walked along singing praises, and saying; "The Lord has risen again from the dead, as He has said; let us all exult and be glad, since He reins for ever."
Then those who had been sent were astonished and fell to the ground for fear, and received the answer from them, that they should see Karinus and Leucius in their own houses. And they rose up and went to their houses, and found them spending their time in prayer.

A Latin account means it was a much later work. If you were correct, why don't the Jews believe you? Another problem.

Karinus, and Leucius were the sons of Simeon, also seen alive during the event. They were known by the Sanhedrin because of their Temple service. They had been priests in the Temple, prior to their death. They were interrogated separately and simultaneously.

Here are the facts of their testimony:
"Christ appeared to us in Hades, preached to all, and that those who had earlier responded to God were miraculously given new bodies, and resurrected when Christ rose from the grave."

Those who chose not to heed the prophets, are still there. And it gets more crowded every day. The earth will give them up after the 1,000 year reign of Christ. They will be judged at the White Throne Judgement. The resurrection of the dead.

And for those who have decided to wait till the last minute to say your prayers, when the rapture takes place you will have 10/100 of a second to get right with your Father. If you miss the next train, you'll be here for the most devastating time in earth's history.

Golly, the old scare tactic. Who saw that coming?

 

[hobelim]

No one said not to read or understand the stories. All you know is what was accepted into the canonized version by vote. Which miracle doesn't require a belief in the supernatural? I do believe in the supernatural but don't try to shape it to conform to preconceived beliefs.

in the gospel of John there are exactly seven miracles. In the revelation of John there are exactly seven seals placed on scripture which prevents everyone from 'looking inside', comprehending..

Every single miracle can be interpreted in a way that does not require a suspension of disbelief that conforms to and can be confirmed by reality, the only constant and reliable constraint on any possible interpretation of stories and miracles that supposedly happened on earth..


Changing water into wine in John 2:1-11
Healing the royal official's son in Capernaum in John 4:46-54
Healing the paralytic at Bethesda in John 5:1-18
Feeding the 5000 in John 6:5-14
Jesus' walk on water in John 6:16-24
Healing the man born blind in John 9:1-7
Raising of Lazarus in John 11:1-45


If you look and look and keep on looking you will find it and the seals placed on scripture like a cipher will be broken and you will look and see what has been hidden inside and everything will be opened to you..

"The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure lying buried in a field. The man who found it, buried it again."

can you dig it?

You're digging into a mountain of fables.

well, yeah. Every story in scripture that contradicts reality is like a giant X on a treasure map marking the place where something of great value is buried and hidden. How else can a person discover the deeper implications of any story impossible to be literally true or the meaning of any metaphor without digging?

and I have seen with my own eyes some people deriding the idea of hidden teaching in scripture and then walk away with some of that treasure in their pocket without so much as a thank you.


damn.

The fact that the secular explanation is hidden means that there is no secular explanation.

A mystery is only a mystery until the truth comes to light.

And once something hidden is seen, it cannot be unseen.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Oh lord, you're a picker. Ok.
To your first point. Goggle is your friend, and it maters only that Ezekiel did, not what you think about why he did.

As to the rest:
Apparently the extent of what you have heard is that Christ is an Essene Rabbi if He existed at all.
I honestly mean no disrespect, but what you have heard isn't relevant to what is actually there. If you haven't heard enough to even realize that Christ existed, then there is a good bit that you haven't heard.

There is no loop, even when you try to create one. Jesus did indeed preach to the Gentiles. Apparently, you hadn't heard. He went out of His way to travel to the well of one such woman, where most Jews took the long route to avoid the place.

He had confidence in the ones standing right next to Him to spread His word. And they did. And He redirected Paul from killing Christians to gathering them. He knows the power of the Holy Spirit. He didn't need pen and paper to start Christianity. He had fishermen. I don't get your problem with that.

My mentality is, "The more you know the better you understand, anything."

Some were writing, some were copying what the writers wrote. My Bible isn't the original, it is a copy of what the writers wrote. And that's ok.

You are dishonest in wanting to know why Josephus didn't mention Christ and then calling Josephus a fraud. You're playing games. Both Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls mention Jesus by name.
I lie for no one. And you are rude for saying I do.

What it proves is that you are wrong about only finding the OT within the dead Sea Scrolls. Jesus is named and his death described in the scrolls. They don't mention His being an Essene though, sorry.

The passages are passages also found in the NT. Contrary to your assertion that the NT can't be found in the scrolls.

No, not a problem. The darkness that lasted 3 hours was mentioned. I have already told you that philosophers at the time of the incident tried to explain it. And proof was offered that it was not an eclipse.

I know you don't get it.

 

[Iceweasel]

in the gospel of John there are exactly seven miracles. In the revelation of John there are exactly seven seals placed on scripture which prevents everyone from 'looking inside', comprehending..

Every single miracle can be interpreted in a way that does not require a suspension of disbelief that conforms to and can be confirmed by reality, the only constant and reliable constraint on any possible interpretation of stories and miracles that supposedly happened on earth..


Changing water into wine in John 2:1-11
Healing the royal official's son in Capernaum in John 4:46-54
Healing the paralytic at Bethesda in John 5:1-18
Feeding the 5000 in John 6:5-14
Jesus' walk on water in John 6:16-24
Healing the man born blind in John 9:1-7
Raising of Lazarus in John 11:1-45


If you look and look and keep on looking you will find it and the seals placed on scripture like a cipher will be broken and you will look and see what has been hidden inside and everything will be opened to you..

"The kingdom of Heaven is like treasure lying buried in a field. The man who found it, buried it again."

can you dig it?

You're digging into a mountain of fables.

well, yeah. Every story in scripture that contradicts reality is like a giant X on a treasure map marking the place where something of great value is buried and hidden. How else can a person discover the deeper implications of any story impossible to be literally true or the meaning of any metaphor without digging?

and I have seen with my own eyes some people deriding the idea of hidden teaching in scripture and then walk away with some of that treasure in their pocket without so much as a thank you.


damn.

The fact that the secular explanation is hidden means that there is no secular explanation.

A mystery is only a mystery until the truth comes to light.

And once something hidden is seen, it cannot be unseen.

What a pile of intellectual dung. I didn't think you could support your assertion. Apparently rational thought is hidden from you.

 

[Iceweasel]

Oh lord, you're a picker. Ok.
To your first point. Goggle is your friend, and it maters only that Ezekiel did, not what you think about why he did.

I'll just ignore it since it's a baseless assertion then. I didn't think you could support it.

As to the rest:
Apparently the extent of what you have heard is that Christ is an Essene Rabbi if He existed at all.
I honestly mean no disrespect, but what you have heard isn't relevant to what is actually there. If you haven't heard enough to even realize that Christ existed, then there is a good bit that you haven't heard.

You are sounding more and more like a lunatic. I never said I read he was an Essene. I brought up several issues that you haven't/can't address. There is no evidence he existed, he may have been a rabbi if he did and the story was embellished. Christians did exist, they believed in him, that isn't in dispute. It took Paul to come along to form Christianity, where in Antioch they were first called Christian, not Jerusalem. That's a problem.

There's no explanation for 500 dead folks walking around and no one recording it but the book accepted into the Bible.

There's no explanation for the Earthquake, darkness and Temple curtains being torn and not recorded elsewhere.

There is no loop, even when you try to create one. Jesus did indeed preach to the Gentiles. Apparently, you hadn't heard. He went out of His way to travel to the well of one such woman, where most Jews took the long route to avoid the place.

apparently they were obeying him.

Matthew 10:5–6 NASB
5 These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them: “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans;
6 but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

He had confidence in the ones standing right next to Him to spread His word. And they did. And He redirected Paul from killing Christians to gathering them. He knows the power of the Holy Spirit. He didn't need pen and paper to start Christianity. He had fishermen. I don't get your problem with that.

My problem is it makes no sense. You are suspending rational thought and embracing a belief that makes no sense. If you have the most important message ever, why not write it down instead of saying others will do it and it will eventually get out there.

Any objective view shows the story as evolving from Judaism to a more spiritual Greek interpretation. Odd that God would choose that time and place to make his Earthly debut.

My mentality is, "The more you know the better you understand, anything."

Some were writing, some were copying what the writers wrote. My Bible isn't the original, it is a copy of what the writers wrote. And that's ok.

You are dishonest in wanting to know why Josephus didn't mention Christ and then calling Josephus a fraud. You're playing games. Both Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls mention Jesus by name.
I lie for no one. And you are rude for saying I do.

You refuse to support any of your wild claims and misrepresenting me, that's rude. I didn't call Josephus a fraud, I said the Testimonium was a fraud.

Flavius Josephus
On the much-disputed matter of whether Josephus mentioned Jesus, see my essay on the Testimonium Flavianum.

Although a "Discourse to the Greeks on Hades" is present in Whiston's translation, few if any scholars today believe that Josephus wrote this work. This is why parallels with NT phrases have been italicized at Wheaton's on-line library (above). I am informed of the following by Stephen Carlson:

After posting to Ioudaios, I received two replies (copied herein) that state that it is well-settled that Josephus did not write this discourse.

Stephen

======

From: "Matthew A. Kraus" <Matthew.A.Kraus@williams.edu>
To: "First Century Judaism Discussion Forum" <ioudaios-l@Lehigh.EDU>
Subject: Re: IOU: "Josephus's" Discourse to the Greeks on Hades

In fact the passage belongs to a work by Hippolytus of Rome entitled Against the Greeks and Plato on the Universe. The work is lost except for a rather lengthy fragment preserved in John of Damscus' Sacra Parallela which includes the excerpt on Hades and the comparison between Minos, Rhadamanthos, and Christ. The myth of Josephan authorship stems from Photius' Bibliotheca 48, which refers to a peri tou pantou of Josephus. However, Photius himself doubted the attribution to Josephus and cited a marginal note indicated a presbyter of Rome named Gaius as the author. As the marginal note claims that Gaius also wrote the Labyrinth which is another title for Hippolytus' Philosophumena, the gloss essentially got the authorship right, but confused the names Gaius and Hippolytus. The fragment is readily available on the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae cd-rom under Hippolytus, on the universe (around line 80).

Matthew Kraus
Assistant Professor of Classics
Williams College

What it proves is that you are wrong about only finding the OT within the dead Sea Scrolls. Jesus is named and his death described in the scrolls. They don't mention His being an Essene though, sorry.

Which scrolls? You don't like being specific. You also don't like being honest. I said I thought he could have been an Essene, I didn't claim he was, nor did I attempt to build a case for it. I do think it more likely. Certainly more than your version of events.

The passages are passages also found in the NT. Contrary to your assertion that the NT can't be found in the scrolls.

No, not a problem. The darkness that lasted 3 hours was mentioned. I have already told you that philosophers at the time of the incident tried to explain it. And proof was offered that it was not an eclipse.

I know you don't get it.

I don't get it because I can't find it. Where is your evidence? If it's there you buried it in a mountain of text. Which philosophers? Why didn't Josephus mention it? Or Philo? Smoke and mirrors won't work on me.

 

[hobelim]

A mystery is only a mystery until the truth comes to light.

And once something hidden is seen, it cannot be unseen.

What a pile of intellectual dung. I didn't think you could support your assertion. Apparently rational thought is hidden from you.

well that was as clear as mud mr rational...


I suppose you are one of those people who has put all his money on the bet that because a story is a fairy tale it is false and even an inking that there is some truth there and more to it than you ever imagined is just too much for you to handle.

What a coward!

show some self respect instead of acting as if admitting that you missed something was worse than pretending you are right even after being shown that you are wrong..


If you can't do that you are no more rational or intellectually honest than people who take the stories literally and insist the words used mean nothing more than their definition and there is nothing deeper either implied or hidden.


Its no skin off my nose if you live out the rest of your days arguing with people as dense as you are, imagining that you are somehow superior even though, like them, the sweat of your brow produces only thorns and thistles.

enjoy.

 

[Iceweasel]

A mystery is only a mystery until the truth comes to light.

And once something hidden is seen, it cannot be unseen.

What a pile of intellectual dung. I didn't think you could support your assertion. Apparently rational thought is hidden from you.

well that was as clear as mud mr rational...

Your post had no substance, just a bunch of religious rhetoric. That isn't support for anything.

I suppose you are one of those people who has put all his money on the bet that because a story is a fairy tale it is false and even an inking that there is some truth there and more to it than you ever imagined is just too much for you to handle.

What a coward!

What an asshole! Some truth here and there doesn't make the supernatural events true.

show some self respect instead of acting as if admitting that you missed something was worse than pretending you are right even after being shown that you are wrong..


If you can't do that you are no more rational or intellectually honest than people who take the stories literally and insist the words used mean nothing more than their definition and there is nothing deeper either implied or hidden.

You are deranged. I asked a few questions that remain unanswered. Telling me that I must suspend thinking and believe in hidden things is just stupid, it isn't an answer. If it's written in a vague manner it's wide open to interpretation, that's why there are so many of them, duh. So far, still no substance.

Its no skin off my nose if you live out the rest of your days arguing with people as dense as you are, imagining that you are somehow superior even though, like them, the sweat of your brow produces only thorns and thistles.

enjoy.

WTF? I never said I was superior to anyone, I asked a few question and got a bunch of smug bullshit. You remind me of why I got sick of going to church.

 

[hobelim]

well that was as clear as mud mr rational...

Your post had no substance, just a bunch of religious rhetoric. That isn't support for anything.
What an asshole! Some truth here and there doesn't make the supernatural events true.

I didn't say supernatural events were literally true....

LOL... apparently you didn't understand my last post either.

Let me dummy it down for you, , **** off.....

 

[Iceweasel]

well that was as clear as mud mr rational...

Your post had no substance, just a bunch of religious rhetoric. That isn't support for anything.
What an asshole! Some truth here and there doesn't make the supernatural events true.

I didn't say supernatural events were literally true....

LOL... apparently you didn't understand my last post either.

Let me dummy it down for you, , **** off.....

So the supernatural events weren't literally true? That's what I said in the first post. That and conflicting stories and events that don't add up to the rational mind.

 

[hobelim]

Your post had no substance, just a bunch of religious rhetoric. That isn't support for anything.
What an asshole! Some truth here and there doesn't make the supernatural events true.

I didn't say supernatural events were literally true....

LOL... apparently you didn't understand my last post either.

Let me dummy it down for you, , **** off.....

So the supernatural events weren't literally true? That's what I said in the first post. That and conflicting stories and events that don't add up to the rational mind.

Yes, and thats great. what I said in my first post is that there is a way to interpret the miracles of Jesus that does not require a suspension of disbelief and are not supernatural demonstrations of reality defying divine power..but they are about something that is true nevertheless.

If one of those religiously addled people suddenly realized that snakes can't talk, blind people can't receive back their sight with a few words and some mud and spit, and the dead don't come out of their graves and these stories like a fairy tale convey a hidden teaching not necessarily directly connected to the literal meaning of the words used it would be as miraculous as the blind receiving sight and the dead coming out of their graves.

A rational mind would not dismiss the entire story of the three little pigs including the teaching conveyed because pigs can't talk.

Its not religious rhetoric or rocket science, asshole..

 

[The Irish Ram]

lol. Ice, are you Bruce?

If Christ didn't exist we wouldn't be call Christians. We'd be ians.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Not only did the dead come back to life, but two of them were handed tablets, and told to write down their whole experience. Page after page after page. I'd print the whole thing here for you, but you wouldn't get it.........

 

[hobelim]

Not only did the dead come back to life, but two of them were handed tablets, and told to write down their whole experience. Page after page after page. I'd print the whole thing here for you, but you wouldn't get it.........

People have been teaching their children with fairy tales using well known and widely accepted forms of literary expression using metaphors, allegories, homonyms, hyperbole, sarcasm, etc., etc., to educate them about life in a fucked up world filled with intellectually deficient knuckle dragging animals since at least the bronze age if not since people first learned to talk..

the dead coming back to life is not and never was literally about the resumption of a former physical existence that ended but like the story of Jesus ascending bodily into heaven it is about the entry into a new existence that has absolutely nothing whatever to do with zombies floating up into the sky.

how is it that this remains above your grasp?

are you brain dead?

 

[The Irish Ram]

Raising the dead to life is indeed literally the resuming of physical life. We are without end. Clay degrades, the soul does not.

 

[MikeK]

How many, if any, of those who clearly have studied the Word consider the kind of financial success exemplified by the Koch Brothers, the Waltons, et al, as the sin of gluttony?

 

[The Irish Ram]

It's not that a person has wealth, but His attitude toward it. One of Christ's followers was the richest man on earth at the time, and that presented no problem for Christ. There is nothing wrong with financial success. Loving success more than Christ is a problem.

You forgot to include the poor broke Clintons, and Obama's buddy George Soros.....

 

[Iceweasel]

Yes, and thats great. what I said in my first post is that there is a way to interpret the miracles of Jesus that does not require a suspension of disbelief and are not supernatural demonstrations of reality defying divine power..but they are about something that is true nevertheless.

All of which remains a mystery apparently. Anyone can interpret anything vague any way they want.

If one of those religiously addled people suddenly realized that snakes can't talk, blind people can't receive back their sight with a few words and some mud and spit, and the dead don't come out of their graves and these stories like a fairy tale convey a hidden teaching not necessarily directly connected to the literal meaning of the words used it would be as miraculous as the blind receiving sight and the dead coming out of their graves.

Can you translate that into English?

A rational mind would not dismiss the entire story of the three little pigs including the teaching conveyed because pigs can't talk.

Its not religious rhetoric or rocket science, asshole..

There's a reason the three little pigs are for children. If you need it then so be it. Just don't try to pass it off as proof of anything.

 

[Iceweasel]

lol. Ice, are you Bruce?

If Christ didn't exist we wouldn't be call Christians. We'd be ians.

I missed the point there.

Not only did the dead come back to life, but two of them were handed tablets, and told to write down their whole experience. Page after page after page. I'd print the whole thing here for you, but you wouldn't get it.........

As I said, the Hebrews seemed to take it as ordinary enough to not document it. Maybe they were used to it? You keep mentioning tablets, that has a cultish feel to it. I haven't heard of any such thing. I've asked for links several times now. I guess I'm not worthy of the pearls.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Originally Posted by hobelim
Yes, and thats great. what I said in my first post is that there is a way to interpret the miracles of Jesus that does not require a suspension of disbelief and are not supernatural demonstrations of reality defying divine power..but they are about something that is true nevertheless.

Hob, why do you think they were called miracles then?
Miracle - an unusual or wonderful event that is believed to be caused by the power of God. : a very amazing or unusual event, thing, or achievement ...

It isn't necessary to interpret them. Why would you want a God that couldn't go beyond our comprehension? Let miracles be miracles.

The power behind those miracles Jesus performed was the Holy Spirit. That kind of power doesn't need to conform to your understanding. The Holy Spirit shakes His head at your understanding.
I want my Father to be amazing, not usual, and wonderful. You want Him to be Bob.

 

[The Irish Ram]

lol. Ice, are you Bruce?

If Christ didn't exist we wouldn't be call Christians. We'd be ians.

I missed the point there.

Not only did the dead come back to life, but two of them were handed tablets, and told to write down their whole experience. Page after page after page. I'd print the whole thing here for you, but you wouldn't get it.........

As I said, the Hebrews seemed to take it as ordinary enough to not document it. Maybe they were used to it? You keep mentioning tablets, that has a cultish feel to it. I haven't heard of any such thing. I've asked for links several times now. I guess I'm not worthy of the pearls.

You believe there is such a thing as a Christian but not that there was a Christ. Did you miss the first part of the word?

So if the Jews documented it, that would be your big proof?