Well sort of, the style used by the writer is not much different than that used by Israelites during settlement of Canaan to the period of Maccabean revolt..Yet Christians are a splinter group of Jews..
Have you read Revelation 1:5-9 (ERV) = "5 and from Jesus Christ. Jesus is the faithful witness. He is first among all who will be raised from death. He is the ruler of the kings of the earth. Jesus is the one who loves us and has made us free from our sins with his blood sacrifice. 6 He made us his kingdom and priests who serve God his Father. To Jesus be glory and power forever and ever! Amen. 7 Look, Jesus is coming with the clouds! Everyone will see him, even those who pierced him. All peoples of the earth will cry loudly because of him. Yes, this will happen! Amen. 8 The Lord God says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega.[c] I am the one who is, who always was, and who is coming. I am the All-Powerful.” 9 I am John, your fellow believer. We are together in Jesus, and we share these things: suffering, the kingdom, and patient endurance. I was on the island of Patmos[d] because I was faithful to God’s message and to the truth of Jesus. " The writer is discussing three beings - Jesus, God, and himself (John). Each one is a separate entity. Jesus is not God or John. God is not Jesus or Paul. Paul is not Jesus or God. You are making yourself look very bad.
His 1st mission was to persecute followers of Jesus. Then he got a better idea, lead them down the wrong path.
Nope, that's a lie. Even when on trial, and no one was there to hear his answer, but they wrote about it anyway, he never admitted to being God. And Jesus has nothing to do with revelations. It's not even suppose to be in the bible book. On the cross he asks god to take the burden from him, if it was god's will. Not his own will.
When one can view the religion from the outside, it becomes real obvious how ridiculous the whole story(s) are. It's coming up on a decade for me, that I've attended church. The stories never added up for me, even back as far as I can remember, 8 yrs old or so. I asked questions no one could ever answer.
Your assumption that the books reflect the chronological state of Christianity is incorrect. As time progressed, the Apostles and eye witnesses were aging and dying (or being killed), the synoptic gospels were written to record the life of Jesus as witnessed by the Apostles. Luke and Acts (both written by Luke), detail the early church and Paul's evangelical activity. Paul's letters were written to address specific issues with specific audiences (for example, the letters to the Corinthians address specific issues with the Church of Corinth), not to detail the events of Jesus life - and there was no need for Paul to detail Jesus life because there were many eye witnesses alive at that time. Pauls letters to Timothy, Titus, Philemon addressed personal and pastoral issues with those specific people. The various epistles (Peter, John, Jude, James) address church issues. Revelation is prophetic. They are not chronological, they do not have the same purpose. Your entire thesis is grossly incorrect and shows a total lack of knowledge of the New Testament (and shows you have not even read the New Testament).
He most certainly did. Jesus repeatedly referred to himself as "Son of Man", a label directly from Daniel in which Daniel describes the return of God (the Messiah) and a label which every Jew would understand. Also John 10:33, where people are ready to stone him for claiming he is God. Or John 8:58, where in a conversation with people Jesus said "Before Abraham was born, I am" - using the label "I AM", the title God used to refer to himself in Exodus to Moses, Jesus use of that label in that context would be immediately understood by Jews, and they did and tried to stone Jesus for blasphemy. And Mark 14:62, where Jesus admits to the Sanhedrin that he is the Messiah. And before you say (as some others here who do not know the Bible) that nobody was there to witness this event, Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin (John 7), was a follower of Jesus (John 3), and was the man who took Jesus from the cross and buried Jesus in his (Nicodemus) tomb (John 19). What you want is Jesus stating in big neon letters that he is God - and he actually does that but if you do not read the Bible and understand it, you don't see it.
How's your memory? How many times did Moses go up and down the mountain with those stone tablets in his hands? What are the Ten Commandments? Who was the first prophet? Why will everyone curse God? Who was accused of being an Egyptian who led a large gang of killers?
Hm. I was a Catholic and an Orthodox for decades. (I went back and forth between the two churches due to obscure theological beliefs that I couldn't decide between.) You can read my earlier posts on here to see proof of my previous faith. To say I don't know the NT is laughable. In fact, I became an atheist because I decided to get brave and read biblical textual criticism. Honestly, so much of the NT has been dismantled that, after a few months of reading these scholars' works, the veil of faith was torn from my eyes. It was difficult at first, but now, as an atheist, I'm liberated. There's no more need to perform mental gymnastics in defense of the absurdities of religion, nor do I have to work to reconcile ancient texts with each other and with science and history.
Have you ever considered the possibility that the stories are complex metaphors and not actual events? If you take the stories at face value chances are they seem outrageous nonsense which can be easily discounted. But I think you have to dig a little deeper to find the meat. For instance, one of the most popular stories is Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. As an actual event it makes no sense. But what is the real meaning of the story? To get to a possible meaning it's necessary to understand Egyptian civilization and what Moses did after leaving Egypt. In ancient Egypt only the scribes and priests and nobility were educated. Everyone else was illiterate. When Moses got the stone tablets he came into possesion of the written word and an unique alphabet. The Israelites as a group became educated while as a group the Egyptians remained illiterate. So the Israelites were able to expand their knowledge base because they could all read and write down their thoughts. Their knowledge became more powerful that the Egyptian military and thus the Egyptians drowned in their mass ignorance while the Israelites advanced in wide-spred knowledge. Remember the passage from Deuteronomy 6:5-9 http://www.bricktestament.com/the_law/how_to_keep_the_law/dt06_06-07.html where in verse 9 it commands the people to write. In order to write they had to be educated. The mass of Egyptians were not educated. This idea is also most likely related to Adam & Eve eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. When people became educated they could think for themselves. So when Adam & Eve were banished from the garden it was like Moses and the Israelites leaving Egypt and becoming educated. When Moses crossed the Red Sea (or the sea of ignorance) knowledge became available to everyone. It's comparable to black people's experience in America. During slavery it was illegal for them to be educated. After the Civil War education became available and for the most part they were able to cross the sea of ignorance just like the Israelites did in the story.
Being a Catholic means nothing, many people say they "are a Baptist/Catholic/Christian/muslim/Buddhist/etc" but never actually read the fundamental texts. The concepts I posted require no mental gymnastics, they are basic and every Jew learns them at an early age, every Christian learns them usually in Bible study, they are presented in almost every Bible study course I am aware of. Your very thesis in this thread - that the evolution of Christianity is reflected in the chronological order of the books of the New Testament - demonstrates a lack of understanding of the books.
If you read the NT in the order it was written, there is clear evolution in the Jesus legend. There are also contradictions between gospels, as well as doctrinal inconsistencies between Paul and James and Peter. And let's not get into the contradictions between the account of Paul's life as given by Acts and the account given in his own letters.
The meaning of the Old Testament myths is simple: The ancient Israelites were a puny nation surrounded by powerful nations. Their inferiority complex caused them to create a history in which they were so awesome and their deity was so awesome that all the nations of the world once trembled! Lol.
That may well be true but they were also generally literate while most of their neighbors were illiterate, weren't they? They could never compete militarily but they could use their knowledge against their enemies.
Wrong. The priests were literate. Ancient Israelite society was no different than any other ANE society. They all had their national deities, their own prophets, etc. The truth, if you can swallow it, is that there was no Exodus from Egypt. The "Jewish people" were always in Israel. They simply made up a fantastical history.
The New Testament was not meant to be read in chronological order as if the individual books combined tell a chronological story. That's the huge flaw in your thinking - and proof you have not read the New Testament.
You seem to be missing the point. The Exodus story is about the Israelites becoming literate (leaving the land of ignorance or Egypt). That's one of the points about Moses getting the stone tablets. The people were instructed to read and to write. Their list of laws served as their primary reading material. Their basic alphabet was illustrated on the stone tablets. In contrast the typical Egyptian was illiterate. Remember, the story is a metaphor. You have to dig deep in order to get to the meat. Technically Egypt absorbed Israel, with the Egyptian Empire extending beyond the Euphrates River. http://kids.britannica.com/comptons...om-period-Egypt-became-a-Mediterranean-empire In a way the Adam & Eve & Moses stories are similar to the Promethus myth. They all brought knowledge to man and suffered for it. http://www.prometheas.org/mythology.html The Noah story could partially be based upon the Egyptian invasion of the area.
I've spent years reading the NT. In fact, one of my favorite topics is early Christian history. Ayway, there is no "official" NT canon. The Catholics and Protestants share one, but in various regions of Orthodoxy you'll find no consensus on which books are canonical. And if you look at the ante-Nicene period, you'll be surprised to learn that many ancient Christian writers rejected books you consider "inspired," like 2 Peter and Jude and Revelation. PS I never claimed it was meant to be read this way or any way. All I'm saying is that there's clear evolution in the Jesus legend.
The stories aren't metaphor. You're being intellectually dishonest. The stories are origin myths and nothing more.
You know best but I like my theory better. So I will develop it more and see where it goes. Do you know how many times Moses went up and down the mountain carrying those heavy stone tablets in his arms?
