The Thread For Those Who Feel The Need To Share All of Their Banal Details- Page 67

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:25pm

What's wrong?

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:27pm

Distraction time...



(In the event that we can't unconfuse Mel, a temporary fix to problems)

[insomniak]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:28pm

*backs up* A gospel is one type of book that's in the Bible. There are four: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They're named after Jesus' apostles, though they were all dead by the time the books were written and probably had nothing to do with them, contrary to popular belief. Each gospel tells the story of Jesus' ministry up through the resurrection, but they all focus on different aspects of it. Most of the stories correlate and don't contradict and they're all pretty straightfoward in terms of storytelling. The other gospels that I mentioned were more abstract and spiritual and even went against what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John said. The early church got rid of those because they were deemed "too wierd" and sometimes even heretical.

If anyone's following the news lately, you might have heard of the Gospel of Judas. It's not exactly a new discovery, but they're now quite far into translating it and putting it back together. It states that Judas did NOT betray Jesus when he told the Roman soldiers who he was, which is diametrically the opposite of what the Catholic Church has taught throughout the ages. I'm curious to see what will happen to it.

[xM3L24x]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:30pm

Hahaha, that's great . I think I'm going to have to change what I wrote because now I'm not even sure what the bible says regarding marriage and I can't find the site I had taken it from.

Nia, I was watching something the other day with my parents about the Gospel of Judas.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:30pm

I saw that; I wanted to watch the thing on TV about it, but I only get that channel at home, and hell if my family could manage to tape it.

So is a gospel kind of the way the Torah is separated into four books? Kind of, I guess -- the Torah is arranged chronologically(ish), not the same story different ways.

So if they went against each other (I'm sorry, I must sound so dumb), does that imply that these were all written by different people?

ETA -- Mel, even if it doesn't explicity say that being gay is wrong, you can draw on what it *does* say about the sancitity of marriage; and marriage as it's portrayed and spoken of in the Bible, which is between a man and a women. I guess it's about the application of strict constructionism, since any *other* kind of marriage is obviously not under that umbrella of sanctity.

Updated On: 4/18/06 at 07:30 PM

[insomniak]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:36pm

You don't sound dumb. I know just as little, if not less, about the Torah.

There are actually 66 books in the Bible. It has two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is the same or very similar to the Torah, I think. The New Testament is stuff about Jesus and his apostles. There are the four gospels and a bunch of other stuff like letters and poems too.

None of the Bible was written while Jesus was alive. After He died, people wrote down what they knew and had heard of his teaching and they traded scrolls around and read them aloud in home churches. In a way, it's glorified gossip, so naturally not all of the details lined up. All of the books are anonymous and yes, they're all by different people. Some people's interpretations and writings were very literal, some were only based on what Jesus taught and were very abstract and centered on the individual. There were dozens of different types of early Christians and it was something like a hundred or two hundred years before they were consolidated and the Bible was put into the form we see today in our hotel nightstand drawers.

If you can ever manage it, I highly reccomend watching that program on the Discovery Channel about the Gospel of Judas. It's a really interesting story- it was found in Eygpt, it was sold on the black market, stolen, ect. Apparently it's written in this obscure old language that only a handful of people in the world can understand.

Updated On: 4/18/06 at 07:36 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:40pm

It bugs me that like, in Hebrew school (or Sunday school and whatever else children attend) they make very little effort to expose you to other beliefs, since it can't be taught in a public school. I took a religion class, but it was religion and culture so it just scratched the surface, theologically.

Are all 66 books gospels, or just those four? (Or, I guess whatever part of the 66 is in the New Testament, because, yes, the Old Testament is the Torah).

I think the Discovery Channel usually releases their "big" stuff on video. I absolutely love the Discovery Channel, but I only get it at home. I used to watch it all the time. I saw a commercial for the thing you're talking about, though, and I was sad I missed it.

Updated On: 4/18/06 at 07:40 PM

[secondstar05]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:44pm

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the 4 Gospels. (First 4 books of the New Testament)

Updated On: 4/18/06 at 07:44 PM

[xM3L24x]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:44pm

I never paid attention in religion classes.

[insomniak]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:45pm

There are only four gospels out of all sixty-six books.

Watching that show sort of made me want to crack my Bible open and read it for myself instead of listening to what everyone else tells me. I actually have read all of Revelations and it sounded like... well, I guess it IS the apocalypse, but it was kind of nutty.

Our confirmation classes have recently started requiring kids to attend other religious services- my sister went to a Catholic mass and will be going to a synagogue in two weeks. I think they might be visting a mosque at some point, too, which I think is really cool. You can't fully understand your own beliefs until you know other people's.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:47pm

What are the other books? Just books? Why do only some get to be gospels?

Is Revelations that series about people being plucked out of their lives and being taken to God, or am I thinking of something completely separate?

Where I grew up, some the church religion classes often had Seders and stuff in class to teach the kids about Judaism, but we never did so for Christian holidays and theology. I always thought that was a little stuck up. Like, if you're gonna learn about us, then we should learn about you, too.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:51pm

Left Behind is the series you're probably thinking of; Kirk Cameron did a bunch of movies about the books. It's about Earth post-rapture (Christians being plucked out of their lives and going to heaven). Revelations is the last book of the Bible that talks about what the end of the world will be like.

Updated On: 4/18/06 at 07:51 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:51pm

Ooh. Yes, that's it. I was way off, sorry. But those are movies; aren't there books, too?

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:53pm

Em -- the gospels are the four books that are written about Jesus's life by some of his followers. The rest of the books in the New Testament are based on his teachings but not accounts of his life.

I've read Genesis, Exodus and Revelations. I'd really like to get around to reading the entire thing. I'm not religious, but I can still appreciate it for its cultural importance/literary value, and I'm sort of interested to see what some people devote their lives so completely to following.

[insomniak]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:53pm

Er... yeah. They're just books. The Gospels are about Jesus specifically, all the rest in the New Testament are about the disciples and other Biblical characters.

"Is Revelations that series about people being plucked out of their lives and being taken to God, or am I thinking of something completely separate?"

You're thinking of a fiction series called "Left Behind", which is about a bunch of people surviving the Christian Apocalypse. Revelations is the last book in the Bible and it is supposedly a vision that a prophet had about what the end of the world would be like. If you've ever heard of stuff like "the four horsemen of the apocalypse" or "the antichrist", that's where they come from. The people being taken from earth to God is a process that is supposed to be the beginning of the end of the world and it's called the Rapture. (You'll hear that term from a lot of televangelists)

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:56pm

I like Genesis. I've only read parts of each, though. I read the Hebrew from Numbers at my Bat Mitzvah, and it was literally a list of tribe names and numbers of people.

I have this weird desire to read one of those books. My professor always made them sound so interesting, if a bit weird. But he grew up in a very religious Evangelical household, and even though he's moved away from the theology of that all, he still teaches it, with distance -- so he can laugh about some of it. Not the theology behind the books, really, but the writing, etc.

Have any of you read them?

The only time I've ever had a mild understanding of the antichrist was when I read The Da Vinci Code. *feels undereducated*

Updated On: 4/18/06 at 07:56 PM

[Chloe]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 7:57pm

A few days ago I read a story in Newsday (Long Island newspaper) about how the ancient scroll of The Gospel of Judas (the one that's been in the news lately) sat in a bank on Long Island for years because the owner didn't know what to do with it. It unfortunately crumbled away there even more badly than it had before, and a lot of work has had to be done on it.

I think the idea that Jesus told Judas to betray him in order to fulfill certain prophecies is fascinating.

[insomniak]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 8:00pm

Reading one of the gospels might help you understand some of the literary references you'll come across in your lifetime.

Wow, by the time I posted all of that, your questions had already been answered three times... whoops.

Emcee, what could be in a book called Numbers? "Thou shalt not sacrifice one child, but instead shall hold one day as the Holy Sabbath becauseth one child equals one day?" I'm kind of curious. I can handle equations, but if it's got parabolic functions, forget it.

ETA- I've read parts of the gospels, but none of them straight through.
Updated On: 4/18/06 at 08:00 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 8:03pm

Which one should I read? And I promise I won't stick it on the shelf with the rest of the stuff you said I should read. *plucks books from shelf, chooses one*

I read the very opening of Numbers; the names for the books, I believe, are derived from their opening portion -- so the entire book wouldn't be about numbers and things, but the part I chanted was the result of a census, so it listed the number of people in each of the 12 tribes (descendants of Jacob's sons). The tribes are named for his sons. The rest of the book follows chronologically; I'm not sure exactly what span of the history it is, though.

Updated On: 4/18/06 at 08:03 PM

[insomniak]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 8:03pm

The Antichrist is basically the Biblical version of Voldemort, if that helps.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 8:04pm

I thought it was some kind of unknown being? I'm confused.

I meant any of the Left Behind books (or the gospels, I guess).

[Chloe]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 8:05pm

It's true that a large part of classic European literature makes extensive references to othe Bible.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 8:05pm

Numbers is a detailed history of the tribes of Israel. After they establish the laws and everything, then through Moses's death.

I've read the entire Bible. It's not something you want to sit down and read beginning to end, and it's not really necessary to, especially in the New Testement because it's not all chronological and a lot of the books can stand on their own.

Updated On: 4/18/06 at 08:05 PM

[sweetestsiren]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 8:06pm

Actually, isn't the Antichrist supposed to be charming and to gather a large following of people and lead them astray? A wolf in sheep's clothing, I guess.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 4/18/06 at 8:07pm

Well, that would make the Voldemort comparison make sense.