Gospel of Judas back in spotlight after 20 centuries

Middle East Online ^ | 2005-03-30 | Patrick Baert

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

OK, let's hear it.

I never said I'd show it to you. It's 'personal evidence'.

(It was just as lame an argument when you used it, trust me)

[AppyPappy]

How much 'personal evidence' would it take to convince you, Pappy?

How are you going to convince me without the evidence?

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

How are you going to convince me without the evidence?

The same way you were going to convince me that Jesus is the Son of God and was resurrected as described in the Bible.

[AppyPappy]

That's just it. I'm not trying to convince you. You can only convince yourself. Your problem was that you thought personal evidence was not evidence.

Every Christian has evidence of the diety of Christ. That's why they are a Christian.

[hosepipe]

[ but is that your opinion, or do you presume to know the workings of the mind and will of God? ]

Nicely written and slickly condescending(the whole post).. i.e. it took effort..

I'm not as nice or slick, could be, but ain't, not my style, especially on a political forum like this... and my only patrony of you will be responding at all.. I have no wish to engage in two monologues.. or in a flame war with the indoctrinated.. either with a Roman Catholic or any other kind of catholic(various or protestant)..

But you do pose an interesting question.. and an attempt at an answer is warranted here, I think..

Basically what you're askin me (in my mind) is; How did I get so smart to make such a statement or imply that; "the real god doesn't like religion any of them".?.

Well, I'm gonna tell ya...
Half in jest (to make it interesting to me), and half as a serious engagement (as an intellectual test to myself). Be not deceived that I have any hope of convincing anybody of anything.. I don't.. Dogma is a strong drug to people.. as Marx and Lenin have throughly proven.. People can switch dogma but getting clean is hard. You posited a fine question nevertheless..

Looking at it one way, biblically, it all started when "the people" came top Moses and said, "We want a "government/ religion like all the other people around us.. thereby rejecting God as their supreme leader and wanting a social structure like the Amelkites, Canaanites, Egyptians and other primitive social structures around them at the time.. After a severe warning (as the bible recounts) from God. The big guy said said, OK, but you must do it this way.. and provided the design for the new renagade system of government/religion..

And The Jews proceeded (for the next several centuries) to prove that human government and religion were beyond mankinds ability to control and follow by any means.. For government and religion are two sides of the same coin.. Morality forced from different angles upon a sliding scale of whatever was politically correct at the time.. Being PC is not a new invention..

(fast foward) God eventually left the ark of the covenant and instructed Jeremiah(some say) to take the ark away thereby obliterating the very reason and basis for Judaism but Judaism continued as a religion.. same thing happened when Jesus(ark) was removed.. Which is to say; a relationship with the god with no name, should be a relationship with no name.. You can't "bag" a REAL god.. Any religion can function without a god, proved by so many religions that don't have a "real" god anyways.. and function quite well.. Religion always was and is a corporation, a human organization that claims to have some "god" tied up in an iron clad contract.. And in the case of "Christian" religions are Used Jesus Salesmen.. or in some, Pre-Owned Jesus Salesmen.. with the insurance provided for an addtional and not nominal charge.. With the jews today its the same story but operate like a "Saturn(auto) Dealer". no haggling.. what you see is what you get.. pay up, and shut up.. Refreshing really..

**NOTE..
I could have gone much further but it dawned on me that I am talking to the dogmatically inhibited.. and the only ones that may get any use from this display are me and few lurkers.. maybe.. But it was good question.. Ex-Cathedra speaking is an art, as many Popes have proven.. Just open your mouth and speak.. and some idiot will take it as out of the mouth of God himself.. I don't do it well, but really, who cares.?.

[rollo tomasi]

Give me scientific proof that you drank something today.

You are confusing scientific proof with legal-historical proof. Big difference.

[Raycpa]

How much evidence do both of you need to believe that the Gospel of Judas is just as real as the Gospels contained in the Bible?

The Jewish requirement is 2 eyewitnesses.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Give me scientific proof that you drank something today.

Okay. Hold out your hands.

You are confusing scientific proof with legal-historical proof. Big difference.

No, I'm saying faith is not the same as scientific evidence.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

The Jewish requirement is 2 eyewitnesses.

Are you Jewish?

[Raycpa]

Yes, I'm an adopted Jew. Two eyewitnesses seems a good standard.

[Raycpa]

No, I'm saying faith is not the same as scientific evidence.

True. Faith is what bridges gthe gap between absolute certainty and circumstantial evidence. Absolute certainty is really not atainable in any real sense. But that is a different discussion.

Christians base their faith on evidence. This evidence includes witnesses as well as personal experience. Its fine to reject the evidence Christians use to base their faith on, but its incorrect to claim there is no evidence.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Yes, I'm an adopted Jew. Two eyewitnesses seems a good standard.

Do you know of any eyewitnesses that I can speak with who can verify that Jesus is the Son of God and that the resurrection happened as described in the Bible?

[atlaw]

Wasn't the difference that the Gnostic books contained the philosophy that man could work out his view o God without the church and the church couldn't have that?

To a large degree, yes. Gnostic nonrecognition of hierarchal authority was premised principally on the view that the resurrection was spiritual, not physical. The resurrected Christ could therefore be encountered and experienced by the laity, and was not an exclusive event experienced by the apostles.

By taking this view, the apostolic succession upon which the authority of the bishops, priests and deacons was based was undermined.

[Drawsing]

Do you know of any eyewitnesses that I can speak with who can verify that Jesus is the Son of God and that the resurrection happened as described in the Bible?

You can find many eyewitnesses that will testify they have seen Elvis still alive. The difference in the resurrection evidence is its reliability. Reliability of the Bible is based on many crossing lines including evidence from archaeology, internal consistency, predictive prophecy, corroborating external documents, quantity of consistent copies and many others. Many non-believers have begun a quest to disprove the evidence only to become convinced of the opposite.

[american colleen]

A very good book on the history of the gospels is: "The Hidden Gospels - How the search for Jesus Lost it's way" by Philip Jenkins. He's a professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State.

You can read the first chapter on line.

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: "While Old Testament canon was a matter beyond dispute, it was necessary to define what the New Testament comprised...."

Interesting post but I must differ with the above statement. The Old Testament is very much in dispute as anyone who has noticed a Catholic Bible differs from a Protestant and Jewish Old Testament. The Catholics, of which I am one via conversion, has several books that are not in most American Bibles. They include some chapters of Esther and Daniel, the books of Tobit, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus (sic?), Maccabees 1 & 2 and a few others I can not recall at this moment.

Why is there a difference? The canon of Divinely inspired works was largely decided about 100 AD by the Christian fathers but there was always disputes about the NT works as your post points out. They were still arguing about this when Saint Jerome was tasked with translating these works in the days of Constantine. The Catholic Bible is the Latin Vulgate as this was the end product of St Jerome's labor. The English Translation Douey-Rheims is from the Vulgate as are all good Catholic bibles. It didn't settle the question once and for all. To this day there are those who dispute the Pauline Epistles and St John's Revelations are favorite targets of critics. Some still do not like The Gospel of Saint John if you can believe that. But there it is. The OT has a different story.

At about the same time (100 AD) the Christian Fathers were deciding what is good and what doesn't measure up the Jew's were trying to piece together the shattered remains of their lives after their defeat in 70 AD. Almost everything was lost so they, like the Christians were putting together their Bible from some of the same sources. One of the best was a collection of writings belonging to the Jews living in Alexandra. They had been there for generations and had almost everything. The one thing they did not have was Hebrew transcriptions of these books. Their copies were in Greek (I think) The Jewish fathers being very Hebrewcentric in their world view did not include them.

That did not bother the Christians near as much so they included these books. That was just fine until 1517.

[Raycpa]

Do you know of any eyewitnesses that I can speak with who can verify that Jesus is the Son of God and that the resurrection happened as described in the Bible?

No, but I can provide written accounts.

Does this mean you only accept living witness testimony ? Apparently you would not accept a will. Or for that matter, the deed to your land cannot be verified without living witnesses. You have a very high threshold for evidence. Much higher than the average person. How do you manage yor affairs by always needing to verify with a living witness??

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

You can find many eyewitnesses that will testify they have seen Elvis still alive.

Like I said about reliability of witnesses...

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

Does this mean you only accept living witness testimony ? Apparently you would not accept a will. Or for that matter, the deed to your land cannot be verified without living witnesses. You have a very high threshold for evidence. Much higher than the average person. How do you manage yor affairs by always needing to verify with a living witness??

This is why it's called, "faith", isn't it?

My faith in God requires no scientific evidence and no eyewitnesses.

But, unlike you, I'm not about to call my faith anything but what it is.

[Raycpa]

My faith in God requires no scientific evidence and no eyewitnesses.

Then you must believe the Easter Bunny brings eggs and the tooth fairy puts coins under your pillow and that when you wish upon a star your dreams come true.

Faith without evidence is delusions.