Posted on 04/07/2021 6:01:32 AM PDT by Cronos
I think the early church went through many ( and IMO unnecessary ) contrived convolutions to make Christianity a purely monotheistic religion.
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So is Christianity not monotheistic?
Or, was that an effort to emphasize monotheism?
I got the feeling her use of “Rabboni” hinted that everything was back to normal and she assumed he would resume his earthly ministry. He noped that because it would have been sheer chaos. The authorities just would have tried to kill Him again.
Perhaps you can think of it in terms of HIS omnipresence, He is everywhere at all times.
God, the Father who reigns in Heaven
His Holy Spirit to move and fills our souls
Jesus, was God in the flesh sent to mankind as proof of His love, so that He may die in the flesh and rise from that death to demonstrate His power over life and death and that for those who believe in Him can conquer death and be with Him in heaven.
But that is just my thoughts as a poor sinner that cannot fully understand the totality of His existence, which is why we are asked to place our faith in Him.
Is the question important or relevant to anything, to faith or beleif in Christianity?
The Risen Lord was not spirit. He has a body that can be touched, and he ate with the disciples. His resurrection body is different from the ones we hear in many ways (not subject to the usual laws of physics He appeared and disappeared at will) but He definitely has a physical body. We will as well after our resurrection
He probably found her sexually attractive in his unascended body and didn’t want either to be tempted.
Good perspective
“So this guy knows more than the bible scholars over the centuries????......”......”I have observed this type of rewriting the bible by pastors who will say: “The original Greek said.....”....”Well, if the original Greek said..., then why haven’t the various bibles been written that way.”
500 years ago, and 1,500 years after the crucifixion “scholars” began rewriting the bible, from Latin and from older Greek copies of the New Testament books, and older Greek and Aramaic copies of the old testament, attempting to put the books into languages actually used by the people. Some say it was an error to ever translate the Bible from Latin, even though all the New Testament in written form began in Greek, not Latin, and any older versions of the Old Testament were in Greek and Aramaic, not Latin.
That period of the 1500s is the era from which most current versions of the bible come, an era 1,500 years after Yeshua died on the cross, when Christians began trying to read from the Bible to the people in languages of the day, with translations of texts as old as 1,500 years and older in the case of the old testament.
Were those translations always “perfect”. I doubt that, and it is not from disbelief in the Bible that scholars have continued to research the application of language translation to the Bible, and that such research can discern what it sees as improvement occasionally. Nothing is perfect.
Those at the bedside of people undergoing near death experiences report witnessing a number of fleeting and strange transformations in body and character that we can't explain with man's limited knowledge of science. These pale in comparison to those who have actually undergone NDEs and return.
Man's science is quick to dismiss these accounts as hallucinations, just as some self-appointed scholars dismiss what Mary and, later, many disciples witnessed.
“The translators had motives.”
There could have been “evil” motives.
But the primary motive was to give German speaking people a Bible in German, not Latin and not Greek, and then Dutch, then English and on and on until the Bible was available in every language.
Latin was not the “language” of G-d.
So is Christianity not monotheistic?
Is the question important or relevant to anything, to faith or beleif in Christianity?
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Well, you brought it up.
Christianity IS monotheistic, and the One God says, “I AM.”
Yes I realize he could make clothes appear out of nowhere.
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Matt 6:26 plus
“And why do you worry about clothes? Look at the flowers in the field. See how they grow. They don’t work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that even Solomon with his riches was not dressed as beautifully as one of these flowers.
Arianism was the dominant view until about the 5th century when, eventually, the trinitarians colluded with the state to eliminate dissent. Shutting down the opposition is not the way to establish a particular viewpoint as fact.
Would a Roman or Greek living in the first century agree with your assessment of the purely monotheistic nature of Christianity?
There are a few Latin words in the New Testament, but written in Greek letters (such as "praetorium" in Mark 15.16).
The word Calvary does not appear in the New Testament--it is from the Latin translation of "place of the skull."
Yes, most of the Old Testament was first written in Hebrew, mostly. Yet there is over 200 verses of the Old Testament that were originally composed in Aramaic, and even remained in Aramaic in the later Hebrew versions.
While the fact the bulk of the Old Testament comes from Hebrew, Aramaic’s importance should not be dismissed. It can’t be dismissed because it enters the Bible at some critical points that can’t be dismissed.
By the time of Yeshua, Aramaic was the spoken language of most of the people of Israel (and beyond), while Hebrew was still the language the Bible was read from, the language the Bible was taught and studied from. (Similar to how centuries of New Testament study were conducted in Latin, and Latin remained the official language of the Catholic Church, though it was no longer the daily spoken language of most people).
Would a Roman or Greek living in the first century agree with your assessment of the purely monotheistic nature of Christianity?
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Probably not, based on their plethora of gods.
But Jesus came, and declared the ONE GOD. (Yes I understand you have issues with One God versus Trinity.)
That ONE GOD is God of all, Creator of all, God above all those other gods; He is the Real Deal.
Those Greeks and Romans who heard Jesus, Paul, or other Christians, and accepted Jesus as Lord, would then understand the One God.
I think it is generally accepted that Aramaic was the common language of the Holy Land at the time of Jesus (although there were some people who spoke Greek). Pope Benedict XVI got into an argument with Netanyahu some years ago for stating that—Netanyahu claimed that Hebrew was still the commonly-spoken language of daily life.
Okay that was pretty funny. Now cut it out!
It’s essence is impenetrable. It’s a flat out mystery. Don’t be too tough on yourself. You have ton of company. The question us whether you can believe the teaching without completely understanding it—i.e., take it on faith.
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