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Here's an interesting article on the importance of God's covenant with Abraham. Why did Jesus have to die?

Before you waste your time tryint to reconvert me from something I already fully considered and then rejected, why don't you try to convert those Catholics and Orthodox who who so self-assuredly insist that the Protestant theories of the atonement are recent and inauthentic? And as for them being "some sect halfway around the world hundreds of years removed," I once again remind you that "halfway around the world" is where your religion comes from and that they were closer in time to the apostles than Martin Luther, John Calvin, or you. Also (again), some of these "false churches" were founded by the apostles themselves and were never under Constantine. Was Thomas in the year "52" less knowledgeable about the "new testament" than you are? Well actually, yes, because he didn't have a "new testament." The original chr*stian church was not founded on the "new testament" but pre-dated and wrote it. Only people alien to the original church turn to the written "new testament" as a rule book.

Will you then insist that the ancient liturgical churches "don't read the Bible?" Do you think Martin Luther invented it? True, there was no printing press until the "fifteenth century" and Bibles had to be hand written, which means the kind of "Bible-based" church you believe in could not have existed until the renaissance when printing made books cheap and available to all. Do you honestly think the ancient chr*stians (before Constantine) brought their Thomas Nelson Bibles to church with them and read along to make sure the preacher was being faithful, as Protestants do nowadays? You can't possibly be that naive.

As to what the Bible says, at least I can read it, whereas you can only read a translation. And if you truly believe in verbal plenary inspiration you cannot be satisfied with a translation. How ironic that the same people (Fundamentalist Protestants) who insist on verbal plenary inspiration are the same people who (thanks to their roots in the Protestant reformation) insist on the all-sufficiency of translations! Unless you want to claim that the KJV of "1611" was written by G-d (as some do). But if you're going to do that, you lose your right to attack the Catholic Church for claiming their translation (Jerome's Latin Vulgate) was also "divinely inspired!"

I suggest you continue this debate with some of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox FReepers. The latter (at least) will tell you that their Byzantine Greek text of the "new testament" is the original authentic apostolic text and that your KJV mistranslates in several places. For example, where your nt has Paul saying that all men die because they are sinners, they claim the original says that all men sin because all men are going to die (strangely, Eastern Orthodoxy claims that it is not sin that causes death but death that causes sin). What do you say to this other than to quote your "divinely inspired" translation?

Your assertion that Isaiah and Daniel teach chr*stianity's eternal damnation is based once again on the theory of "progressive revelation," that what is unimportant or hinted at in the Torah is later elaborated upon as the revelation rises to greater peaks of inspiration. One might make the same claim about techiyyat hameitim (the resurrection of the dead), but unlike eternal damnation, that has been a constant teaching of Judaism's Sages from the time of Moses and was thus included by RaMBa"M in his thirteen essential principals of belief. (BTW, Daniel was not a prophet and his book was not written under prophetic inspiration but under ruach haqodesh, which means his predictions are more contingent than those of a prophet.)

It is really heart-wrenching to know the country is full of good Bible-loving people like you who will not even consider that the "new testament" is merely a false revelation just six hundred years older than the "holy qur'an" and that you will spend your life believing that your version of chr*stianity, which exists only in northwestern European cultures and their colonies/mission fields, is the restored original version of chr*stianity, and that you either are totally ignorant of, or else afraid to confront, the actual ancient churches founded by the apostles and which contain the descendants of the original chr*stians simply because they are so old (and thus more authentic) and "halfway around the world" (and thus ethno-culturally more authentic).

It is obvious to me that you are so committed to the "new testament" that you cannot stop invoking it even when arguing with people who do not accept its authority (once again, that logical fallacy). I am afraid I must allow you to continue these Protestant arguments with the ancient churches who claim you are wrong and that they are right. Then when you have convinced them and all chr*stendom speaks with one Protestant voice we'll talk again.

Be well.

tryint to reconvert me from

Oops. Should read "trying to reconvert me to." My apologies.

Here's an interesting article on the importance of God's covenant with Abraham.
Why did Jesus have to die?

You know, if G-d were going to start a new religion a thousand years after Sinai, it would have been nice if He had had at least given a hint about it in the Torah. Of course, if you assume at the outset that the nt is part of the Bible then you see "hints" all over the place. But if you don't begin with this assumption you don't.