Я хочу заняться сексом
http://esoreret.ru

(Comment on this)

Hey!
So, its been awhile....ive been busy with work and a ton of other stuff....
BUT!
for those of you who care.....
I AM WRITTING A BOOK!!
yes...ive already began on writting a book, in 2 parts,
part 1) a comparison of actual history vs. biblical history
              biblical passages that contradict itself
             where books of the bible really came from

part 2)a social commentry on what the world would be like
            if we all led our lives as the bible wants us too
           

im tryinto write this as an everyday mans guide.
should prove interestig, and i know a ton of people just waiting for it
and let me thank everyone whos helped with encouragement, and advice
thankyou =)
and thankyou to all those who tell me im serving satan and how its wrong to write it,
you fuel my fire to speak the truth, and to shed the real light upon outdated, evil, fictitious, ideas that should have long ago been stamped out.
and the truth shall set them free........

(Comment on this)

check this out too, lol.

The editing and formation of the Bible came from members of the early Christian Church. Since the fathers of the Church possessed the texts and determined what would appear in the Bible, there occurred plenty of opportunity and motive to change, modify, or create texts that might bolster the position of the Church or the members of the Church themselves.

Take, for example, Eusebius who served as an ecclesiastical church historian and bishop. He had great influence in the early Church and he openly advocated the use of fraud and deception in furthering the interests of the Church [Remsberg]. The first mention of Jesus by Josephus came from Eusebius (none of the earlier church fathers mention Josephus' Jesus). It comes to no surprise why many scholars think that Eusebius interpolated his writings. In his Ecclesiastical History, he writes, "We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity." (Vol. 8, chapter 2). In his Praeparatio Evangelica, he includes a chapter titled, "How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived" (book 12, chapter 32).

The Church had such power over people, that to question the Church could result in death. Regardless of what the Church claimed, people had to take it as "truth." St. Ignatius Loyola of the 16th century even wrote: "We should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides."

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

sorry
sorry, havent been updating recently.
i've noticed people never have anything to say about my bible quotes that shed a new light on the cowardice that goes hand in hand with the myth of jesus. lol. hmmm makes me wonder.....
any way heres a new little nugget of wonders......

No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus. Devastating to historians, there occurs not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus. All documents about Jesus got written well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings. Although one can argue that many of these writings come from fraud or interpolations, I will use the information and dates to show that even if these sources did not come from interpolations, they could still not serve as reliable evidence for a historical Jesus, simply because all sources derive from hearsay accounts.

Hearsay means information derived from other people rather than on a witness' own knowledge.

Courts of law do not generally allow hearsay as testimony, and nor does honest modern scholarship. Hearsay provides no proof or good evidence, and therefore, we should dismiss it.

so....jesus wouldnt be a good witness in court, lol.
not too mention, if jesus had really lived, he wouldnt have been traveling, preaching to people. he would have been in jail.
in jesus's time, it was illegal for a man not to be married, also illegal to not have sex and procreate. lol.
if i had been jesus, lookout!!! erection comin through!!!! hey...wanna taste the body of christ?? LMAO
*sigh* communion, lol......nothin like practicing mock cannibalism.

(Comment on this)

my response
woooooo, only took almost a month before some1 decided to reply , lol.
first off, as for the 7 deadly sins, its ideas , are universal to all christian churches, not just catholic. after all thr roman chatholic churh is where you all began. if it didnt exist, you wouldnt have denominations.now as for what makes this savior different is he was with out sin....well, no. jesus sinned. read the "lost" books of the bible. or as i like o think of them, the "forbidden" books of the bible.youll read of jesus murdering two poeple. check this out:

The Lost Books of the Bible

The Church View:
In the Catholic Church the Bible is the Douay Bible consisting of 73 books. In the Protestant church only the 66 books approved by the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618, which today is known as the Authorized King James Bible.

The Bible View:
Though there is no specific list or accounting of all the books that made up the complete Bible in scripture there are over 20 books mentioned in the Bilble but not found there. This is proof that many have been removed and there is evidence that many more fell under the same fate.

An Introduction

Human history has allowed precious few ancient religious writings to survive the onslaught of the more aggressive and powerful religious forces, which seek only to gain territory and wealth. Genocide and cultural eradication always go hand in hand with missionary zeal. In many cases every trace of the conquered society's religious writings, practices, icons, and even buildings were destroyed, in the name of conversion from worship of gods considered evil, and religious customs labeled as heresies. What generally results from past crusades is the conqueror's religion replacing or predominantly blending with the conquered culture's former religious practice, making the its religion almost unrecognizable. Christianity falls into the latter category, having been the victim of the Roman Empire, under the Emperor Constantine, who blended the Christian Church with the institutionalized "pagan" practices of Rome and eliminated any semblance of either the Jewish religious influence or the first church Jesus established during his ministry.

The First Reformation

After solidifying his position to gain complete control of the western portion of the empire in 312, the Emperor Constantine instituted the Edict of Milan, a "Magna Carta of religious liberty," which eventually changed the Empire’s religion and put Christianity on an equal footing with paganism. Almost overnight the position of the Christian Church was reversed from persecuted to legal and accepted. Constantine began to rely on the church for support, and it on him for protection. The Church and the Empire formed an alliance, which remains to this day. Very rapidly, the laws and policies of the Empire and the doctrine of the Church became one with Constantine as the interpreter of both law and policy. This was accomplished by eliminating hundreds of books thought to be against "Church" doctrine and watering down what remained by blending Christian beliefs and practice with long established Roman sanctioned pagan worship.
Constantine believed that the Church and the State should be as close as possible. Constantine tolerated pagan practices, keeping pagan gods on coins and retaining his pagan high priest title "Pontifex Maximus" in order to maintain popularity with his former subjects. In 330 he began an assault on paganism but used a clever method of persuasion to force people to follow the laws by combining pagan worship with Christianity. He made December 25th, the birthday of the pagan Unconquered Sun god, the official holiday now celebrated as the birthday of Jesus. He also replaced the weekly day of worship by making rest on Saturday unlawful and forcing the new religion to honor the first, not the seventh day, as a day of rest. As a way of defining his concept of the new universal religion he simply classified everything "Jewish" to be an abomination. Considering almost every aspect of the Bible is "Jewish" by association, every doctrinal biblical principle was changed or eliminated. After 337 Constantine increased his purging of the more obvious aspects of paganism.
Through a series of Universal Councils, he and his successors completely altered doctrine without regard to biblical edict, set up a church hierarchy of his own design, and established a set of beliefs and practices, which are the basis for all mainstream Bible-based churches. The separation of the Protestants and the Roman Church caused a physical split but the beliefs and practices established by Constantine remained almost identical. Very little has changed since the 4th century Councils changed the face of Christianity. An effective practice instituted was the purging of any book in the formerly accepted biblical works, over 80% of the total, that church leaders felt did not fit within their new concept of Christianity. The doctrines and practices remaining in the surviving books were effectively eradicated by simply changing them by replacing clear scripture with Church-sanctioned doctrine.

Forbidden Not Lost

Constantine began what was to become a centuries long effort to eliminate any book in the original Bible that was considered unacceptable to the new doctrine of the church. At that time, it is believed there were up to 600 books, which comprised the work we now know as the Bible. Through a series of decisions made by the early church leadership, all but 80 of those books, known as the King James Translation of 1611, were purged from the work, with a further reduction by the Protestant Reformation bringing the number to 66 in the "Authorized" King James Bible.
What we now have in Bible-based religion, whether labeled as "Catholic", or Protesting Catholic, known as “Protestant", is unrecognizable form either the Hebrew religion, now known as the Jewish religion, or the church established at Jerusalem by the Apostles and disciples of Jesus. The practices of this first church are not practiced by any major religion and they are almost unknown, despite being clearly outlined in the existing New Testament. In its place are doctrines and practices first established in the first "true" Reformation of Christianity begun by Constantine.
There is much controversy over how many books the Bible should actually contain but considering the depth and scope of those few works remaining in the "accepted" Bible, we see but a fragment of incredible wisdom and history. A study of the Lost Books of the Bible is incomplete without a clear understanding that this is not a matter of simple loss, but a campaign by the Roman Catholic Church to purge books variously classified as heretical, dangerous, and corruptive. To the public they are “lost”; to the Church they are “forbidden”. Although the exact number of books purged is known only to the Church, and not shared knowledge, some can be determined by the discovery of their presence in the church prior to the reformation resulting in what became known as the Roman "Universal" Church.
One of the more obvious forms of discovery comes from the surviving books themselves, which sight works not present in the existing collection. Also many do not know that the Apocryphal books were actually included in the King James translation until they were officially purged by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1885. Other writings also connect many books to the first church. Whatever the number before the purge by the formation of Catholicism by Constantine; even one lost book is a great loss indeed.
We do, however, strongly reject the self-proclaimed authority of any dogmatically motivated and church-controlled mortals who think themselves qualified to make such decisions. One of the most logical and realistic concepts in the Bible is the caution that one should prove all things.

and now as for kersey graves...ive never heard of the guy. i first heard of it from a dr. lloyd graham. perhaps if your brave enuff, ull read his book, deceptions and myths of the bible. good read.
i must also say, whoever responded to my post shouldnt leave it anonymous, be proud of what you know, n mark your name . obviously you know mine somehow, lol.
what has always bothered me is the inaccuracies, and mistranslations in the bible. which number in the thousands. such as adam and eve.
obviously this is a mistranslation, we didnt start fom 2 people, thats obsurd. in the original writings , the words that were translated ment many men and many women. this i learned from my pastor who was born and raised in the middle east. he once told me any school child in that region could read those passages, and wouldve chuckled at so called christians hard core belief in the adam n eve story as is, lol.
he also once told me how deeply it saddens him that most christians , when confronted with corrections in the bible, get angry. and i must say , he has been right. it also saddens me to know how he kicked out of the church, and stopped preaching because of it. all because christians cant accept things. why was he kicked out? because of his statement that god could be anything he wanted to, he wasnt a man, he could also be a woman, or take form as a dog, basicly what ever he wanted , he was the divine force, and had no limit.
pretty terrible statment huh, lol? back stabbed by the people he loved and trusted. to this day the only people he talks to from that church, are myself , and my parents. infact, the next time he wore his official robes , was 10 years after the incident, at my wedding. lol, he always tried to tell me, that even though i may not have belief in the bible as accurate. but that i should atleast respect the idea behind it. i do. to a degree. i mainly disagree with sin . lol. hey check this out, finely found what i was looking for:


Many traditions about the birth of Jesus, upon further research and reflection, have little basis in fact. Jesus was not born in a stable, but in the home of a member of Joseph's extended family that lived in Bethlehem. Some misconceptions concerning the circumstances of His birth result from a mistranslation of kataluma that means "guest room," not "inn." They also reflect a Western rather than a Middle Eastern understanding of the cultural factors involved. When he referred to the inn where the Samaritan brought the wounded Jewish traveler, Luke used this term pandocheion (Luke 10:34).

and.....
Animals were usually brought into the lower level of rural and small town homes at night for safety, and in the winter, to provide warmth. The manger was usually carved from stone, measuring three to four feet in length. The cavity that usually held fodder for animals would be just the right size and located at just the right height for a baby! (The phrase, "born in a manger," is unscriptural and patently an impossibility.)

later, gotta go 2 work!!!

(3 Comments |Comment on this)

Deuteronomy 7:1-3a
“When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations . . . And when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them.”

hmmm, i guess god is against intermarriage......i wonder what else he's against?...(thinkining while entering wavey dream like sequence, lol)

hmmm looks like i found something the bible isnt against....slavery:

Ephesians 6:5-9: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."

well.....how about incest??

Rarely in history has anyone enjoyed the perks of divine anointment with as much vigor as Pope John XII. As Mel Brooks might say, "It's good to be the pope!"
Rome was a very sticky place in those days. John indulged his lust as he saw fit, including orgies in the halls of St. John Lateran, the most prestigious cathedral in Christendom, and sex on the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul. He particularly enjoyed doing widows and virgins. Among his many conquests, John XII had sex with his niece, his sisters and his mother.

hmmmm......next thing you know there will be a new cigarette campaign:
ALL NEW FROM THE VATICAN!! WANT A NICE TOBACCO PUFF? WANT TO SMOKE AND GET FORGIVEN?? TRY THE NEW CIGARETTE THAT HAS ROME PUFFIN!! NEW HOLY SMOKES!!
COME ON AND SAVOR THE SAVIOR!!!!
hmmmm....sounds like a funny skit to me, think ill write it , lol.
tah tah fer now, im off to find more evil in the bible, lol. or mabe to bed

(Comment on this)

We often hear of the beauty and charm of the teachings of Jesus, and of the self-evidence of their divine source. But, on investigation, we find that his doctrines do not bear the stamp of originality. Nor did he so far value them himself as to put them consistently into practice -- e.g., having taught his followers that whosoever should call his brother a fool should be in danger of hell-fire, he himself called the Pharisees fools, and so unconsciously pronounced his own sentence!
If he had been a true Messiah, he would surely have utilized the opportunity afforded him when the lawyer came and asked him, before a large crowd, what he should do to inherit eternal life. Yet what happened? Did the Son of God adduce any striking proof of his divinity by enunciating new and wonderful precepts of wisdom and morality? No he repeated, nearly word for word, certain maxims which he had culled from the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus. The commands given in Matt. Vii. 22 and xxiii. 37-46 simply echo the teachings of previous sages. Thus, Confucius, who lived some 550 years before Christ, uttered the words: "Do not to another what you would not want done to yourself; thou hast need of this law alone; it is the foundation of all the rest"; and "Acknowledge thy benefits by return of other benefits, but never avenge injuries." The so-called "Lord's Prayer" is merely a reiteration of similar prayers in the Jewish Talmud. The conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus echoes the teaching of Krishna in the Hindu poem of the Bhagavat-Gita. The doctrine of the water that removes thirst for ever has its parallel in Hindu mythology, and Philo had already taught it as follows: "The Word (Logos) is the fountain of life...... it is of the greatest consequence to every person to strive without remission to approach the divine Word of God above, who is the fountain of all wisdom, that, by drinking largely of that sacred spring, instead of death, he may be rewarded with everlasting life." Many other passages in the Fourth Gospel show dependence on the non-Christian works of Philo

IF all the wonderful things said about Jesus were true, we should naturally expect to hear something about him in the writings of the period. But not one of the writers of the first century -- "the Augustan Age of Letters" -- even mentions him, his apostles, or his miracles. There were writers in History, Natural History, Medicine, Materia Medica, Astronomy, Miracles, Fables, Satire, etc. What do Josephus and Tacitus say? Nothing. Such extraordinary events as feeding thousands of people with a few small loaves and fishes; raising the dead to life again; their ghosts walking about the streets; miraculous darkness covering all the land for several hours; earthquakes; mysterious voices from the clouds; rising through the air into the clouds, etc., must have formed topics of general conversation, and must have found a place in the literature of the day. Cures being wrought must have interested the writers on medicine; but not a word on the subject. It is incredible that no one except the four interested partisans, who are supposed to have written the gospels, should ever have referred to them. Josephus was a Jew, and lived in the country where all these things are said to have occurred, and wrote a history of the period; yet he makes no mention of even the existence of Jesus. But in the manuscript of his "Antiquities" (book xviii., 3) an unknown hand has inserted between the account of the Sedition of the Jews against Pontius Pilate, and that of Anubis and Pauline in the Temple of Isis, a purple patch relating to Jesus, which is clearly a forgery. Josephus, a Jew, is made to say: "Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure." Now, it is not likely that a Jew would show such a respect towards Jesus, who was known among his own people as a seditious person; and talk about his teaching "the truth." Further on he is made to say: "He was the Christ, and when Pilate ... had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him , for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him." These are expressions, not of a Jew, but of a Christian; and surely the writer could not have remained a Jew another hour. Forgeries were easy in those days, when all books were written on skins, to which fresh pieces could easily be fastened. Neither Philo, nor the two Plinys, nor any other writer of the age, mention the name of Jesus, much less the "ten thousand other wonderful things" mentioned by the interpolator of Josephus. Tacitus wrote a History, and made no mention of Jesus. But a forged "Introduction," entitled "The Annals of Tacitus," was found in a Benedictine monastery at Hirsehfelde, in Saxony, in 514. These "Annals" were not found in any other copy of the History of Tacitus, and not one writer from the time of Tacitus to the above date had mentioned the existence of the work. Beatus Rhenanus first called them "Annals" in 1533. It appears that in the time of Wicliffe, when the existence of Christendom was seriously menaced and the Inquisition was instituted, people were inquiring into the origin of Christianity. Large sums of money were offered for the discovery of ancient manuscripts, which would bear testimony to the divine authority of the Church, in consequence of which the supply was equal to the demand, as it generally is, and plenty of manuscripts were forthcoming from needy monks. Among these were the "Annals" of Tacitus, composed by a late Papal secretary, Poggio Bracciolini, at the price of 500 gold sequins, and re-written by a monk at Hirschfelde, in imitation of a very old copy of the "History" of Tacitus. In this Tacitus is represented as saying that "one Christus was put to death under Pontius Pilate, and had left behind him a sect called after him." The forged writings were sent to his friend and employer, Niccoli, with a letter in which the following occurs: "Everything is now complete with respect to the little work, concerning which I will, on some future opportunity, write to you; and, at the same time, send it to you to read in order to get your opinion on it." After its discovery it was deposited in the Library at Florence. Mr. W. Oxley says: "The nefarious and mendacious writings of anonymous monkish authors have been noticed and exposed even by Catholic historians, The late Cardinal Newman, in his 'Grammar of Assent' (P. 289), says, referring to the opinion of Father Hardouin: 'Most of our Latin classics are forgeries of the monks of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.' Such a statement, coming from one of the heads of the Church, is more than significant ... In Hardouin's 'Prolegomena' (1766) he says: 'The ecclesiastical history of the first twelve centuries is absolutely fabulous. The series of Popes is no more authentic than the series of Jewish high priests. The agreement of the monastic chronicles for the year 1215 shows that they were all the product of one monastic 'Scriptoria.' Not one was written by a contemporary of the events described. Gregory 'the great,' elected 1227, is the first of whom we have any historic notice; which leaves a forged and fraudulent list of some 180 Popes who never had an existence other than in the worse than imagination of the compilers ... There are no tombs or sepulchers of any of the Popes prior to this date, nor yet coins, but what are acknowledged to be spurious." Hardouin (who was "a learned scholar and a writer of high position in the Jesuit College in Paris" 1645-1728) exposes the worthlessness and lying legends of the so-called "Patristic Fathers." He dates the first design of the forgers in France from 1180-1229, which was continued 1245-1314; and the construction of this class of literature went on to an immense extent during the next 150 years.

Current Mood: creative

(Comment on this)

they should use Smilex!!!
hey look at psalm 82:[[A Psalm of Asaph.]] God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.

among the gods?? plural??hmmmmm

(Comment on this)

just thought id add this tidbit of info, have fun learning!!
Evangelist: Brother, you're in trouble if you put your faith in science. Science can never give you absolute truth. Science is always having to correct its mistakes. Science can't save!

Heathen: You're probably right that science cannot give us absolute knowledge. But as long as it gives us information that is solid enough to stake our lives on, what more do we need? Anyhow, there doesn't seem to be any other source of information that's any more reliable — and lots that are much less reliable man science. As for saving, penicillin's record isn't too bad.

Evangelist: Friend, there is something more certain than science. There is a source of absolute, unfailing truth. You don't have to go with the guesses of science any more. You can go directly to the source of all knowledge.

Heathen: Really? What is it?

Evangelist: The Holy Bible, brother, the Book of Books!

Heathen: Which Bible is "the Holy Bible"? I mean, mere are lots of different Bibles floating around. There's the Koran —

Evangelist: Sinner, I'm talking about the Christian Bible, not the false Bibles of the superstitious heathens.

Heathen: Well, even if I admit that Christian Bibles are better than Muslim or Mormon Bibles, how do you know which Christian Bible is the correct one? The Catholic Bibles contain seventy-three books, the Protestant Bibles have only sixty-six.

Evangelist: The Catholics are in thrall to the Devil, brother. They have some false books along with the true ones. The true Bible is the King James Version — translated without error from the original tongues into God's own English. You don't think God would let the transmission of his own word to us fall into error, do you? The King James Version has been preserved inerrant to bring the message of salvation to sinners like us.

Heathen: No kidding? How do you account for the fact that some of "us" are Catholics? Why has god allowed the transmission of his word to Catholics to become corrupted? Why did god allow Protestants to be sold the first editions of the King James Version, which still contained all the seventy-three books found in the Catholic Bible?

Three Problems

True believers who wish to put all their faith in the Bible are faced with three problems: (1) How can one know which books are "inspired" and should be part of the scriptural canon? (2) How can one know which one — if any — of the existing contradictory manuscripts (MSS) of a given book preserves the "true" wording? (3) Assuming that one has the correct manuscript (MS) of a given book, how can one know what the particular Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic words mean? As we shall see, there is no way these questions can be answered with absolute certainty. At best, believers must trust to the probabilities — not certainties — that arise from a scientific investigation of the facts surrounding the biblical texts and traditions. Believers will have to face the fact that there is no way at all to know which Bible to believe — let alone what to believe in it. Believers still have to put their "faith" in other human beings.

Which Books?

As just mentioned, the first problem believers have to face is the problem of which books belong in the Bible, which ones don't, and how to decide. Actually, it is extremely rare for individuals to decide these questions on their own. Usually they inherit a set of "holy books" from the families they are born into. Catholic children inherit a somewhat ampler number than do Protestant children, and Jewish children get still fewer — thirty-four less than the Catholic kids do. Shortest-changed of all are Samaritan kids. They only get Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and — if they eat their lentils — Joshua. If to be "saved" one needs to have information found, say, in Revelation, 2 Paralipomenon, or Baruch, isn't it odd of god to let so many people be born into environments deficient in books needed for salvation?

How comes it then, that there is such diversity of opinion as to which books are "canonical," i.e., should be part of the official collection of "inspired" scripture? What divine principle has left the Samaritans with Bibles containing only five or six books, the Jews with thirty-nine, the Protestants with sixty-six, and the Catholics with seventy-three? Why did ancient Christians have even more books in their Bibles?

In the case of the Samaritans, the small number of books in their Bible reflects nothing more significant than the fact that the Samaritans, living in the northern part of Palestine, became split off from the main center of Jewish cultural evolution — the southern kingdom of Judah — before the prophets and other writings had come to be considered "scripture" by anyone.

To this day the pitiful remnant of believers calling themselves Samaritans claims all books outside the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible, the so-called Five Books of Moses) are uninspired and, therefore, uncanonical. A possible exception is the sixth book of the Bible, the Book of Joshua, which seems to be given quasi-scriptural status. Not only are the later books of the Jewish canon "unscriptural," in the Samaritan view even the Hebrew version of the Pentateuch (the "Masoretic Text," the so-called Textus Receptus or "received text" from which our King James (KJ) and later Bibles have been translated) is no good either. It differs from the Samaritan text in more than six thousand variant readings! But alas for the beliefs of the Samaritans and the Jews, the small size of the Samaritan Bible and the six thousand variant readings of the Masoretic Text are due to no discernibly divine principle of selection: They are merely accidents of political history — and warfare.

Throughout Jewish history up to the Council of Jamnia (held near the present-day city of Joppa, near the end of me first century A.D.), the list of books thought to "defile the hands" (i.e., were inspired) differed as a function of geography and political affiliation. By the time the Christian Church was formed, Greek-speaking Jews had accumulated quite a few more hand-defiling books than had their stay-at-home, Aramaic- or Hebrew-speaking cousins. When the Christians adopted the Greek "Old Testament" for their own (including the newfangled books that went with it), Palestinian Jews had to circle their wagons. At the Council of Jamnia, the Jews threw out such books as Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, and both Books of Maccabees. By a slender vote, they narrowly avoided throwing out Ezekiel, Proverbs, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. In the case of the Book of Daniel, the Jews threw out the last two chapters, settling for an even dozen. (The Catholic Book of Daniel still contains fourteen chapters.)


Figure 1. A page from E Kaine Diatheke, a Greek New Testament published by The British and Foreign Bible Society (© 1958), showing the "preferred text" and "critical apparatus" for Matthew 1:11, 16, 18.

A. The traditional text of verse 16 reads: "And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, the [one] called Christ."

B. The beginning of the variant readings for verse 16, with symbols for the various manuscripts followed by their different readings.

C. The symbol for the Syriac (sy) Sinaiticus (s) manuscript, a third to fourth century document reflecting the state of the biblical text in the second century, before believers in the virgin birth myth had succeeded in altering all the gospel texts.

D. The greatly abbreviated Greek reads: "And Joseph begat Jesus, the one called Christ."



Just as the list of holy books differed from Jewish community to Jewish community, so the list of books considered holy among the early Christians differed from church to church, although Christians generally preferred the larger Greek Old Testament to the smaller Hebrew one. In addition to the Jewish scriptures, each Christian community developed its own "New Testament" scriptures, creating more than a dozen different gospels and an uncertain number of epistles and apocalypses.

It comes as no surprise to learn that no "Church Father" is known, who drew the line of canonicity in the same way as does the Fire-Baptized Full-Gospel Pentecostal Holiness Church of God in Christ of today.

The illustrious Irenaeus (b. ca. A.D. 130), for example, considered the Shepherd of Hennas to be inspired, but rejected Hebrews, Jude, James, 2 Peter, and 3 John. Clement of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 150-213) included the Apocalypse of Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas in his Bible. Tertullian (b. ca. A.D. 160) — best remembered for his dictum, Certum est, quia impossibile est ("I believe it because it's impossible") — threw out all the New Testament books except the four gospels, Acts, thirteen "Pauline" epistles, Revelation, and 1 John.

As certain churches (such as those at Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople) gained in political power, each made strenuous efforts to stamp out "heresy," and church councils were convened (often by the Roman Emperor rather than by popes or patriarchs) to vote on which books were canonical — and to anathematize those who could not buy enough votes to be on the winning side.

The history of these councils is both bewildering and abominable. The Council of Laodicea (A.D. 363) included Baruch in the Old Testament, but barred Revelation from the New. The Council of Carthage (ca. A.D. 397) included Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, Tobit, Judith, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. The most recent infallible enumeration of the Catholic canon took place at the Council of Trent (A.D. 1563), in the midst of the German Reformation. The Greek Orthodox Church closed its canon sometime in the tenth century, when it finally admitted the Book of Revelation (although it still does not use quotations from this book in its lectionaries). The Syrian Orthodox Church grudgingly adopted Revelation a century later still.

Although not every church council debated which books belonged in the Bible, it is nevertheless true that issues decided by previous councils helped to shape the decisions that defined the canon. Contrary to the naive opinion that the deliberations of church councils were infused by the power of divine guidance, most of the councils — and their aftermaths — were pretty ghastly affairs.

The council of Nicaea, for example, was convened in A.D. 325 by the Roman emperor Constantine — the first Christian emperor. After being converted to Christianity, Constantine put to death his wife, his son, a nephew and his wife, and had Licinius (his coemperor) and his son strangled after promising them their lives. These chores out of the way, he convened the bishops and patriarchs of the realm to define the nature of the Trinity and decide which of the squabbling factions of believers should be given the royal patent for orthodoxy.






Christianity





The burning question of the council was the argument between Arius and Bishop Alexander of Alexandria. Arius claimed Jesus was essentially distinct from the Father, having been created ex nihilo by the latter. Alexander, however, claimed "as God is eternal, so is his Son — when the Father, then the Son — the Son is present in God without birth, ever-begotten, an unbegotten-begotten." By a packed vote, Arius was condemned as a heretic, excommunicated, and exiled. Three years later, however, Constantine went soft on heresy (or changed his mind as to who were the heretics) and recalled Arius to Constantinople. On the very day Arius was to reenter the Cathedral in triumph, his bowels suddenly burst out in a privy, obviating any need to redefine orthodoxy. The orthodox considered it a miracle; the Arians knew it was murder.


Figure 2. No virgin birth here! Part of the genealogy of Jesus in the Syriacus Sinaiticus manuscripts referred to in Fig. 1-C. (Printed text © 1894 by Agnes Smith Lewis, The Four Gospels in Syriac, Transcribed from the Sinaitic Palimpsest, Cambridge University Press).

Syriac reads from right to left. Asterisks mark the Syriac word 'wld, "begat." Underlines show names repeating in the formula: A begat B, B begat C, C begat D, etc. Verses fifteen to sixteen read: "Eliud begat Eleazar, Eleazar begat Matthan, Matthan begat Jacob, Jacob begat Joseph; Joseph, to whom was betrothed a young woman, Mary, begat Jesus [(l)yshw', the last name underlined] who is called Messiah."


Poison was not the only way to decide questions of theology. At the "Ecumenical" Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431), St. Cyril, the Pope of Alexandria, bribed enough bishops to be able to convene the Council before the arrival of the Patriarch of Antioch, whose opposition he feared. Without opposition from the delegation from Antioch it was a simple matter to condemn one Nestorius as a heretic, and to proclaim the Virgin Mary to be theotokos, or "mother of god."

At the Second Synod of Ephesus (A.D. 449), Dioscoros, the Pope of Alexandria (Cyril's successor), condemned Flavian, the Pope of Constantinople, and then kicked his rival in Christ so severely that he died three days later. Summoning a mob of monks and soldiers wielding staves, swords, and chains, Dioscoros convinced the bishops who had planned to vote for Flavian to vote "correctly."

Such were the means by which truth was determined in the orthodox Catholic Church. Among the Protestants it was every sinner for himself when it came to deciding which books belonged in the Bible.

Among the Protestant "reformers," opinions differing greatly from those held by Protestants today were common. Luther didn't think Esther belonged in the Bible, but he thought highly of 1 Maccabees and Sirach. He had a low opinion of Hebrews, and Revelation he thought to be of little value, being neither apostolic nor prophetic. The Epistle of James he termed "an epistle of straw."

The Swiss reformer Zwingli pronounced Revelation unbiblical. John Calvin denounced that book of ravings as unintelligible, and he forbade the pastors of Geneva to attempt to interpret it.

Current Mood: contemplative

(Comment on this)

welcome!!!!
Greetings, i made this journal to discuss and debate religion, and other things as well. so i hope we all have fun as well as getting educated. for starters let me beginn with this:

Out of 250 Jewish-Christian writings, sixty-six have arbitrarily been declared canonical by Protestants. The rejected books are of the same general character as those now published together as the "Holy Bible." Circumstances rather than merit determined selection.
For 150 years the Christian Bible consisted of the sacred books of the Jews. The New Testament was not formed until the latter half of the second century when Irenaeus selected twenty books from among forty or more gospels, nearly as many acts of apostles, a score of revelations and a hundred epistles. Why were these particular books chosen? Why four gospels instead of one? Irenaeus: "There are four quarters of the earth in which we live and four universal winds." The gospels were unknown to Peter, Paul, and the early church fathers. They were forged later.
The Bible did not assume anything like its present form until the fourth century. The Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and Protestant canons were not adopted until modern times. The Bible was recognized as a collection of independent writings. The Council of Trent (1563) determined the Roman Catholic, Protestants denounce the Catholic Bible as a "popish imposture." The Greek Catholics at the Council of Jerusalem in 1672 finally accepted the book of Revelation. Their Bible contains several books not in the Roman canon. The Westminster Assembly in 1647 approved the list of sixty-six books composing the authorized version, the one most used in America. Our Bible, therefore, is less than 300 years old.
The Bible story of Jesus is a contradictory and confusing account. The Bible shows that this Jesus fellow spoke and taught many absurd and foolish things, and often believed he was having a conversation with devils. If one will read the entire Bible, one will find tales of ignorance, murder, sexual perversions, mass insanity, idiotic laws, and even cannibalism and human sacrifice. It staggers the imagination how anyone in his right mind could read the Bible and believe that it was written by a wise, just, and loving god. Christians have found biblical scriptures telling them to burn people at the stake, to justify slavery, to oppress and persecute others, and to kill and commit war in the name of their god. Unfortunately, there are some even today who would have us return to the teachings and laws found in the Bible.
well, enough for now, it just saddens me to know, that most christians believe because they'v been told to believe, not to question their so called faith, most dont even know whats really in the bible, or they selectively dismiss what the bible says just to suit what they want. it doesnt work that way.

newman, as for "church" aka the evil empire...lol..it really is just multiple people gathered to worship, and praise the lies they'v grown up believing, lol. after all, if u lived in india, ud have grown up hindu, ...orient....confusism. its all culture. truth beset, i can admire jesus's teachings, and still realize that his miracles never happened, y because they didnt. there is no evidence that he did them, and truth betold..the story of those miracles predate jesus, the least of which by about 200 yrs. as for the first pope?? well its considered by the roman catholic church to be simon peter the apostle, which is totally silly.peter was in charge of circumcision, lol. the point is u cannot take the bible literally, if every1 did the world would be in dire trouble, hell according to the bible, jesus was a false witness:

"If I [Jesus] bear witness of myself, my witness is not true." (John 5:31)

"I [Jesus] am one that bear witness of myself..." (John 8:18)

OR even the lineage of jesus and joseph, lol:

"And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary...." (Matthew 1:16)

"And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being ... the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli..."(Luke 3:23)

what??? lol
or what about jesus's courage, what a man to stand in harms way for god!!lol
"And I [Jesus] say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do." (Luke 12:4)

"Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple..." (John 8:59)

"After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because Jews sought to kill him." (John 7:1)

A case of do as I say, not as I do!
lets not forget his disciples, those men of virtue:

"All that ever came before me [Jesus] are thieves and robbers..." (John 10:8)
lol

(Comment on this)