Pushing tolerence is bad — Page 2

Yes, but leaving aside the notion of organized Christianity (which was a long way off), Jesus still was purportedly saying that only through his own teachings could anyone "cometh unto the Father."

Yes, Reginald, but he was speaking of a Father - God - that did not exist in the Pagan world. This was not the modern world. There were not multiple Abrahamic religions. And leaving aside Zoroastrianism, Mithraism (actually Mithraism likely did not exist until the late 1st century after the death of Jesus) and a few other faiths, which played little if any part in Jesus's worldview, Judaism was the only game in town when it came to monotheism.

It was an age of Jews and Gentiles (or Pagans/pantheists). There were no Christians or Muslims. Pagans had no interest in how to find the Father because he was not their God. The statement that the only way to the Father was through Jesus would be completely irrelevant to anyone who was not Jewish. Even with respect to a convert to Judaism, Jesus would have been addressing that person as a Jew when he said that the only way to the Father was through him.

Accordingly, there is no way to interpret that statement as in any sense saying that for non-Jews the only way to the Father was through Jesus. Only Jews would have cared about hot to get to the Father. Their father, no one else's. By definition, those who sought the Father were Jews.

Updated On: 9/24/13 at 04:36 PM

And similarly, in Matthew, "And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" you're saying that "all nations" refers only to Jews? A Jew would have responded--then and now--with "the Father the who and the who?" No?

Even assuming Jesus was only interested in the Jews, Joe said that he said "I am the way" (not, as his priest pointed out, "a way"). I still don't see that disproven, unless you just discount John. Which is fine by me.

Updated On: 9/24/13 at 04:43 PM

Updated On: 9/24/13 at 04:50 PM

That quote makes your argument much better, Reginald. I do discount the gospels as fact; they disagree with each other, even the canonical ones. But my statement earlier that Jesus didn't say anything like that, which I meant to refer to these texts, however reliable they are, is indeed undermined by that quote.

In my defense, I think I prefaced my original statement by saying that I was a non-believer and wasn't raised in the church (so I could be mistaken)...

Yeah. Excuses, excuses. Mea culpa.

Then again..... one could argue that that quote from Matthew, although it calls for evangelism, never says that the only way is through Jesus.

But putting it together with the other quote, yeah, you got me.

Updated On: 9/24/13 at 04:53 PM

Take it as doctrine - and, yes, it was fun!

Actually, when speaking of the nations, and those in them who were seeking the Father, they would still be.....

oh never mind.

Henrik I I did enjoy your lesson but not everyone is open to learning.

:)

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Updated On: 9/24/13 at 05:26 PM

As in selling your poon for money?

Speaking of poon...

My point Joe about the natoons is that they gave aid to help, but also as goodwill and to "convert" the peoples that their way was best. Wheter it was france in african usa in soufh america or USSR in eastern europe. Its a natural part of the deal. And a pretty good one at that

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Joe I would agree to a point that one of the major tracts of Christianity, as it has been practiced for two thousand years (more or less), as established by Paul, is proselytizing evangelism. The Jerusalem assembly headed by James the brother of Jesus had quite a different idea of what it was to be a follower of Jesus. This was a major conflict between James and Paul and one very much tied up in the Jewish diaspora of the 1st century while the Temple still existed, the position of Judea as a client state in the Empire as it changed during constant revolts (among which Jesus was a key figure), Paul's journey from anti-Christian oppressor to the most influential figure in the early Church, the destruction of the Temple by Rome and the greater dispersement of Jews into the Empire, and beyond it, at the time of the Jewish War and second destruction of the Temple.

I highly recommend Reza Aslan's book Zealot on this very subject.

What I would contest is the principle that the historical Jesus necessarily had a deliberate message to Gentiles about the definitive and sole way to the Lord (the Lord, singular, being a concept that only Jews or those seeking to become Jews would have found meaning in to begin with) or evangelism being directed at non-Jews with their conversion as a major goal of his teachings. Of course, one can point to the sayings of the Christ as they appear in the gospels as proof of this, but the gospels are not entirely persuasive, far from it, a point on which Reginald and I appear to agree, as they are a product of a different historical and political moment than Jesus's life and works had been, and may well be revisionist history in the Pauline perspective of evangelism.

Updated On: 9/25/13 at 10:10 AM