Posts by Mat

41

2 Thessalonians issue

by Mat in

reading a great book, jeus interupted, that i reccomend, but i came accross an interesting issue about second thessalonians.

ehrman argues that he does not think 2 thessalonians was written by the same person who wrote 1 thessalonians, and gives his reasons:.

if paul meant what he said in 1 thessalonians, that jesus return would be sudden and unexpected, it is hard to believe that he could have written what is said in 2 thessaloniansthat the end is not coming right away and that there will be clear-cut signs to indicate that the end is near, signs that had not yet appeared.

Mat

All I can say is I'm glad you guys are happy in your faith, even if I don't share it.

44

WHO WROTE THE BIBLE by Washington Gladden, PT 1

by Quentin in

am currently reading this book.

would like to share some excerpts from same.take note mr. gladden is objective in his wrting.see wikipedia for gladden bio.

excerpts, printed by waking lion press.

Mat

A book by the same title was written by Richard Elliot Friedman

41

2 Thessalonians issue

by Mat in

reading a great book, jeus interupted, that i reccomend, but i came accross an interesting issue about second thessalonians.

ehrman argues that he does not think 2 thessalonians was written by the same person who wrote 1 thessalonians, and gives his reasons:.

if paul meant what he said in 1 thessalonians, that jesus return would be sudden and unexpected, it is hard to believe that he could have written what is said in 2 thessaloniansthat the end is not coming right away and that there will be clear-cut signs to indicate that the end is near, signs that had not yet appeared.

Mat

Nice try Tammy, but there is a difference between "those who are alive" and "we who are alive". You know interpretation is easier if you stop trying to rationalise around the premise that it is the truth.

41

2 Thessalonians issue

by Mat in

reading a great book, jeus interupted, that i reccomend, but i came accross an interesting issue about second thessalonians.

ehrman argues that he does not think 2 thessalonians was written by the same person who wrote 1 thessalonians, and gives his reasons:.

if paul meant what he said in 1 thessalonians, that jesus return would be sudden and unexpected, it is hard to believe that he could have written what is said in 2 thessaloniansthat the end is not coming right away and that there will be clear-cut signs to indicate that the end is near, signs that had not yet appeared.

Mat

Hi Deputy Dog, you say:

He was alive when he wrote it. He didn't know the day or the hour of Christ's return. He did not know who would be alive or dead including himself.

Well, obviously he didn't know! But from the scripture we are discussing it is clear that Paul believed that he would be among the living on the day of the Lord. It is also clear that he made his contemporary generation believe the Lords day would be in their lifetime. So much for God's inspiration eh? When years passed and many Christians started to doubt, rather than apologise for building false hopes, he (or someone, but I reckon it was him,) writes a snotty letter telling the Thessalonians that it is their own fault for getting it wrong! He tells them they didn't listen to him properly! It's just like how the Watchtower have handled the 1975 issue and the Generation of 1914.

It proves that these texts are not inspired, and that the writer of them was just as manipulative and unethical as the Watchtower Society is today.

41

2 Thessalonians issue

by Mat in

reading a great book, jeus interupted, that i reccomend, but i came accross an interesting issue about second thessalonians.

ehrman argues that he does not think 2 thessalonians was written by the same person who wrote 1 thessalonians, and gives his reasons:.

if paul meant what he said in 1 thessalonians, that jesus return would be sudden and unexpected, it is hard to believe that he could have written what is said in 2 thessaloniansthat the end is not coming right away and that there will be clear-cut signs to indicate that the end is near, signs that had not yet appeared.

Mat

Wobble, if the books/letters in the bible are not written by who they claim that makes the claim lies. If the bible is full of lies then it is not a book worth putting your faith in, yet millions all over the world put faith in it and it affects laws, politics, even the decision to go to war. It influences who nations fund and support. It affects human rights.

Would you prefer your ruler to base decisions on truth or lies? I know which I'd chose.

41

2 Thessalonians issue

by Mat in

reading a great book, jeus interupted, that i reccomend, but i came accross an interesting issue about second thessalonians.

ehrman argues that he does not think 2 thessalonians was written by the same person who wrote 1 thessalonians, and gives his reasons:.

if paul meant what he said in 1 thessalonians, that jesus return would be sudden and unexpected, it is hard to believe that he could have written what is said in 2 thessaloniansthat the end is not coming right away and that there will be clear-cut signs to indicate that the end is near, signs that had not yet appeared.

Mat

Deputy Dog, you still haven't explained your interperatation. Why would I include him among the dead? At the risk of repeating myself let me point out- he said "we the living..."

Let me make it slightly clearer. He said- "we the living..."

Perhaps a bit clearer- He said "we" as is us, you and me.

How on earth does that not include Paul who wrote it?

41

2 Thessalonians issue

by Mat in

reading a great book, jeus interupted, that i reccomend, but i came accross an interesting issue about second thessalonians.

ehrman argues that he does not think 2 thessalonians was written by the same person who wrote 1 thessalonians, and gives his reasons:.

if paul meant what he said in 1 thessalonians, that jesus return would be sudden and unexpected, it is hard to believe that he could have written what is said in 2 thessaloniansthat the end is not coming right away and that there will be clear-cut signs to indicate that the end is near, signs that had not yet appeared.

Mat

Ok Paul supporters, how do you interperate what Paul said in the verse?

After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. NIV
Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, NAS
Then the rest of us who are still alive at the time will be caught up with them into the clouds to meet the Master. The Message
Then we, the living ones who remain [on the earth], shall simultaneously be caught up along with [the resurrected dead] in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; Amplified Bible
Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. New Living Translation

Oh I tire of copying and pasting. See for yoruself the translation comparison here:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20thess%204:17&version=NLT

In every case he says "we". He included himself in this description, he got the congregation excited that the Lord's day was soon- just like the Watchtower did last century, and especially in 1975. It's quite clear what he was saying! Interperatation? Piffle! It's less vague that the Watchtower was about 1975!

So, P Sacramento, who do you think Paul meant when he said "we"? How do you interperate this scripture? (Open to all Paul supporters).

41

2 Thessalonians issue

by Mat in

reading a great book, jeus interupted, that i reccomend, but i came accross an interesting issue about second thessalonians.

ehrman argues that he does not think 2 thessalonians was written by the same person who wrote 1 thessalonians, and gives his reasons:.

if paul meant what he said in 1 thessalonians, that jesus return would be sudden and unexpected, it is hard to believe that he could have written what is said in 2 thessaloniansthat the end is not coming right away and that there will be clear-cut signs to indicate that the end is near, signs that had not yet appeared.

Mat

Hi Deputy Dog,

So without evidence, why would you suggest Paul would do such a thing? Are you're trying to suggest Paul is acting like a JW simply because the WT lies to it's people?

Ehrman actually says "it's hard to believe" that Paul would write what he did in 2 Thessalonians. However, experience has made it rather easy for me to believe that someone could and would write such conflicting teachings as found when comparing 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Face it, Paul wrote:

16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4- NIV)

So, to paraphrase- Paul was telling them that the Lord will come in their generation!

However, the writer of 2 Thessalonians (Whether it was Paul or not) wrote this:

1 Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, 2 not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us— whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter— asserting that the day of the Lord has already come (( has come -NAS,ES,and others; has already begun- NLT; is at hand- KJ; already here- CEB; is just at hand- ASV; is present- DT; be neigh- Wycliffe, )).3 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness[a] is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. 4 He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshipped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God. 5 Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? 6 And now you know what is holding him back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time.

It makes me laugh because it reminds me of this infamous quote from the Watchtower addressing the 1975 issue:

Watchtower-1976-July-15-p.441
"If anyone has been disappointed through not following this line of thought, he should now concentrate on adjusting his viewpoint, seeing that it was not the word of God that failed or deceived him and brought disappointment,but that his own understanding was based on wrong premises."

So. Do I think that Paul would lie to his congregation? The evidence is this- 1) Both Thessalonian letters have the same writing style, and if one is a fake- it is a very good fake. 2) Religious leaders have and do lie to their congregations especially when rationalising about failed predictions. 3) The only reason scholars hold that 2 Thessalonians is a fake is because of the different message. This tells me that a) 2 Thessalonians is not a fake, and b) that Paul was a liar.

18

For British exjws: how has your view of the Royal Family etc changed

by jean-luc picard in

jw
friends

with the royal wedding in the news,.

has your perspective of the royal family, her majesty the queen, the national anthem, and maybe politics in general, changed since you left the borg?.

even if you're not british, would you say you are more patriotic now?.

Mat

I've always been indifferent to the Royal Family. No change.

41

2 Thessalonians issue

by Mat in

reading a great book, jeus interupted, that i reccomend, but i came accross an interesting issue about second thessalonians.

ehrman argues that he does not think 2 thessalonians was written by the same person who wrote 1 thessalonians, and gives his reasons:.

if paul meant what he said in 1 thessalonians, that jesus return would be sudden and unexpected, it is hard to believe that he could have written what is said in 2 thessaloniansthat the end is not coming right away and that there will be clear-cut signs to indicate that the end is near, signs that had not yet appeared.

Mat

Hi, Deputy Dog, the only trouble with that as evidence is we have no record of whether it even reached the Thessalonians, or any remark from them. It could have easily been a fraud entered in to the scroll selling market, or by a later cleric trying to alter church doctrine. That said it also is possable it is genuine and that Paul only claimed he told them such things. We know how the Watchtower implies they predicted the First World War, when in fact they didn't.

So, refering to what he supposedly said to them in his visit in no evidence either way.

Hi P Sacramento, why do you like Paul so much? His teachings jar with Jesus' so much, and he constantly keeps saying how inspired he is to give orders! He never refered to Jesus' miracles or quoted anything recognisable in the gospels! I've puzzled over why there is so much focus on him when Peter was meant to have taken over. Paul strikes me a a very charasmatinc con artist with some horrible opinions that he passes off as being God's inspiration!

Hi Wobble, I'm not so sure Christians ever did have anything tangable. Even the Hebrew scriptures are not reliable. Let's face it, there was no Messiah. 70 AD proved that. Christianity seems to be some effort to rationalise the fact that the Jews got destroyed inspite of their faith in God. Face it. The biggest evidence against worshiping the God of the Bible is the Bible itself! It's just a case of reading it witout the conditioned perspective that Christianity gives us.