7th June 2006, 9:05 AM
ABF, please don't imply that I am a fool who doesn't understand logic or critical thinking because I am a Christian. I really think that degrades the discussion. If I am a fool, please prove it to me.
You will always find people who argue that these books weren't written by Mathew or John, because that helps to question the credibility of the what they wrote. And there are many people who don't like what they wrote. The facts are, as the wikipedia articles document, that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that these accounts of Jesus were actually written by who they are named after. There is very little to none that suggests Thomas and Phillip actually wrote those.
Again, you will discover that the 4 Gospels in the Bible were unanimously held by Christians to be far above the others in accuracy as early as 140 AD. I think that carries weight because these were people who had heard the first and second hand stories of Jesus life and could compare that with what these written works contained.
I'm not saying that the Gnostic gospels contain no truth. And I won't argue that often history can be best seen by people who have much larger scale to view from, say several hundred years. This aids in sorting out not just what happened, but how events caused chain reations and influenced history for long periods of time. But we are not talking about a history book, we are talking about a biography.
The point of a biography is not to simply describe what a person did in an orderly chronological list. Who would care? The point of a biography is to help you understand a person, so see not just what they did, but why. To help you learn their heart and motives that were behind their actions. That is why it is essential that a biography is written by someone who has a good knowlege of who they are writing about, and first hand knowlege would be ideal.
The Gospels tell the life of Jesus. They don't just list what he did. They talk about why. They talk about his motives. The goal is not to help you know about him, it is to help you know him. And that is the core of Christianity.
When I wasn't too serious about my beliefs, I didn't really care if what I had been taught was right or wrong. It wasn't a big enough deal to me to spend the time to learn the truth. Oh, I'd argue about it but I didn't have any ground to stand on. I didn't know the Bible very well and I could only repeat whatever I had been taught. Over the last 3 years or so I have decided to live for God, and that has brought on a desire to actually know Jesus. I don't want to settle for half-truths and confusion. Now I spend a lot of time studying the Bible and other sources to learn as much as I can about who Jesus was, what he did, and why. Jesus didn't ask people to "believe" or "accept" him, he said that we need to follow him.
See, I think you are mixing up passion for fanboy reactions. You are assuming that since I have so much invested in my beliefs that I am willing to compromise truth in order to protect my beliefs. Actually, because I place such a high value on God I am highly concerned with finding the truth.
I would argue that I am much more interested in studying this than ABF, because he doesn't even believe there is any importance to it. His only goal is to try to tweak people like me! :) But that doesn't provide enough incentive to really study hard and find truth. He is content to take what he hears that he likes from professors or friends or other sources and believe that. ABF, I am not intending to belittle you at all. I wouldn't spend effort investigating something I thought didn't hold any value- that would be a huge waste of time! But is what I said false?
I didn't do all that research on the Da Vinci code to make a post here arguing with everyone. I wanted to study it myself, and you just got the brain dump of it all.
You will always find people who argue that these books weren't written by Mathew or John, because that helps to question the credibility of the what they wrote. And there are many people who don't like what they wrote. The facts are, as the wikipedia articles document, that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that these accounts of Jesus were actually written by who they are named after. There is very little to none that suggests Thomas and Phillip actually wrote those.
Again, you will discover that the 4 Gospels in the Bible were unanimously held by Christians to be far above the others in accuracy as early as 140 AD. I think that carries weight because these were people who had heard the first and second hand stories of Jesus life and could compare that with what these written works contained.
I'm not saying that the Gnostic gospels contain no truth. And I won't argue that often history can be best seen by people who have much larger scale to view from, say several hundred years. This aids in sorting out not just what happened, but how events caused chain reations and influenced history for long periods of time. But we are not talking about a history book, we are talking about a biography.
The point of a biography is not to simply describe what a person did in an orderly chronological list. Who would care? The point of a biography is to help you understand a person, so see not just what they did, but why. To help you learn their heart and motives that were behind their actions. That is why it is essential that a biography is written by someone who has a good knowlege of who they are writing about, and first hand knowlege would be ideal.
The Gospels tell the life of Jesus. They don't just list what he did. They talk about why. They talk about his motives. The goal is not to help you know about him, it is to help you know him. And that is the core of Christianity.
When I wasn't too serious about my beliefs, I didn't really care if what I had been taught was right or wrong. It wasn't a big enough deal to me to spend the time to learn the truth. Oh, I'd argue about it but I didn't have any ground to stand on. I didn't know the Bible very well and I could only repeat whatever I had been taught. Over the last 3 years or so I have decided to live for God, and that has brought on a desire to actually know Jesus. I don't want to settle for half-truths and confusion. Now I spend a lot of time studying the Bible and other sources to learn as much as I can about who Jesus was, what he did, and why. Jesus didn't ask people to "believe" or "accept" him, he said that we need to follow him.
See, I think you are mixing up passion for fanboy reactions. You are assuming that since I have so much invested in my beliefs that I am willing to compromise truth in order to protect my beliefs. Actually, because I place such a high value on God I am highly concerned with finding the truth.
I would argue that I am much more interested in studying this than ABF, because he doesn't even believe there is any importance to it. His only goal is to try to tweak people like me! :) But that doesn't provide enough incentive to really study hard and find truth. He is content to take what he hears that he likes from professors or friends or other sources and believe that. ABF, I am not intending to belittle you at all. I wouldn't spend effort investigating something I thought didn't hold any value- that would be a huge waste of time! But is what I said false?
I didn't do all that research on the Da Vinci code to make a post here arguing with everyone. I wanted to study it myself, and you just got the brain dump of it all.