Re: It seems that after 400 years of silence from God that He sent them...

Israel practiced false religion....

FishRice · 2025-05-19T20:02:10.595Z

for multiple centuries & @ no point during that time did God change His mind & say; "You know what, they're wrong, but they're dedicated to it so I'll honor their false worship". There's a YUGE lesson in that for the apostate church system that loves to hide behind the ole trusty excuse of: "He knows my heart". He sure does... Jeremiah 17:9 King James Version 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

Well, in fairness, I don't how you would have said that in 5 sentences. Sorry it took me a while to respond. I had work to do. Wink.

Cultural influences in literature is of course a study all its own. I think you would agree that one has to decide whether to view those influences, for any document, as formative or interpretive. Did the influences form the story, or enlighten it? I think one of the reasons this distinction is less obvious for the bible is that the canon closed soon after the NT events. The canon existed unofficially early on, and the councils later officially recognized documents that met certain objective criteria. Lets stay out of those weeds, but I think we can agree that the canon put an historical stake in the ground. IE, 'These people are attesting to what they were in a position to know happened in the years 30 to 33 AD, and to their actions in the immediately succeeding years.'

Nothing written since, even by Hudson Taylor or MLK, however true and Spirit directed it might be, has been or can be granted that status. Therefore, the cultural influences on 'scripture' stopped at that point. Had the canon remained open, we would see that to MLK Jesus was a righteous king, a defender of truth at all cost, but that to Taylor he was a gentle friend who was closer in solitude and failure than in rare triumph. Those two, verbalizing cultures separated by time and geography, would reveal the Jesus known by Peter.

Instead, the most recent scripture we can consider is 2000 years old, and I think anyone would be tempted to see cultural influences leading up to that point as formative. The story seems to stop right there, so it must have been evolving up to that point. But had it continued on to today, which actually it is, we would see that a new Jesus is not developing. That is what Revelation was for, to 'reveal' to the Christians of that day the Jesus they served. 'The story is over, folks. You are called to live it out until that day, come what may.'

I say all that because I was at first tempted to say, "I agree with all you said." However, Dog said something like that to one of my recent posts, to which I replied, "Well, I must not have said it right. Let me try that again." So, I read the posts again to give you another shot at conflict.

I read your first page. Agree. I read the second page. Agree. As I re-read the third page, it seemed to be that Jesus's identity was the result of cultural influences about immortality. Those ideas might be that, but that is not the gospel claim. The story of the trial, execution and resurrection, and events immediately before and after,, is so detailed that if one proposes that the gospel story is the result of cultural influences, one has to propose a massive and deliberate conspiracy. We would have a completely fabricated story of high complexity, told not in literature but to the people of the time, in that city. It is ancient literature to us, but to them it was people claiming to have seen it telling people right then. Lots of people. The Gospel is not, "Once upon a time a wise man died but was deemed good enough to come back." It is told as historical fact, almost in newspaper style.

To propose that cultural influences planted the idea of a resurrection, which gave birth to a fabricated gospel story, one has a sizable defense to prepare, I think.

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Re: I don't bellieve the OP intended on painting Judaism as always having...

May 23, 2025, 2:40 AM

Good points about the 'freezing' of sacred literature.

I'm not sure what the most recent additions to the "How I saw God" literature club are around the world, but 2 of the larger, more numerous groups, would be Islam in the 600s (although it views itself as the religion of Abraham, thus predating both Judaism and Christianity in core principals) and Mormonism, in the 1830's I believe.

I'm sure there's more literature I'm not familiar with, like 7th Day, Unitarian, etc. But it is odd that the documentation of experiences with God seems to have tapered off, considerably, around the world, in the East as well, since ancient times.

>As I re-read the third page, it seemed to be that Jesus's identity was the result of cultural influences about immortality.

While I was writing that I wasn't thinking of Jesus in particular, although he is kinda the elephant in the room as far as significant resurrections go, isn't he <img border=

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Specifically, I said: "In my view, the arrival of Alex the Great in 323 BCE in the Levant, and the founding of the Greek 10 Decapolis towns and others in the area, had a huge impact on Judaism."

And I base that opinion on there just not being any examples of resurrection in the OT prior to Greek arrival. And after Greek arrival, I think 8 or so, with Jesus being #9. And of course, the Greeks themselves thought about half dozen of their divine heroes were resurrected as well.

But as to Jesus specifically, because he was resurrected in a context where resurrection was already accepted, by both some Greeks and the Jewish Pharisees (though not the Sadducees), we can't really say that his resurrection occurred outside of that cultural context.

So I guess the question might be, would his resurrection have been interpreted as such, if no other persons were considered to be resurrected in his time? I'll take a firm stance and say idk, lol.

That's because, by Jesus's time, there was no way to isolate Greek culture from Hebrew culture. The blend had already occurred. All we can really say is...pre-Greek, no resurrections on record; post Greek, 8+. For me, that shows influence. Others many not see it that way.

We could have had a situation where NO ONE believed in resurrection, and then Jesus was taken up. That would have been incredibly dramatic. But that’s not the history that’s documented in the Bible itself, or in other ancient texts. Resurrection was already ‘in the air’ by Jesus’s time, and there’s no indication it came from within Judaism itself.

But, having said that, I do think that every word written about Jesus was believed by those who wrote it, including by Jesus himself, who I think truly believed he was the Son of God till his death. People don't die pretending to believe in something, you know.

>The story of the trial, execution and resurrection, and events immediately before and after, is so detailed that if one proposes that the gospel story is the result of cultural influences, one has to propose a massive and deliberate conspiracy.

I don't quite see it that way, and I'll explain below.

> It is ancient literature to us, but to them it was people claiming to have seen it telling people right then. Lots of people.

Yeah, I agree. But I don’t see it as a conspiracy at all. I think every detail, every person, every event, and every horror documented in the Passion of Christ went down exactly as described. Right down to the cave being opened and being empty.

> The Gospel is not, "Once upon a time a wise man died but was deemed good enough to come back." It is told as historical fact, almost in newspaper style.

Right, told as fact, among the believers who wrote it. Those who saw what they saw, and those who they told. None saw him rise, but about 500 said they saw him walk the earth after his death, before his final ascension. But as to any underlying truth of his resurrection, I just can't say.

For years I would have sworn on my life that Kirk said “Beam me up, Scotty. I could even tell you the episode he said it in. But that never happened. Kirk did say, "Scotty, beam us up", and "Beam me up", and "Mr. Scott, beam us up." But never "Beam me up Scotty." I believed, but I was wrong.

But I’m not going to tell anyone what they experienced personally, or not. Back then, or now. How could I? I can say what I have experienced, or not, and that's my limit. People believed in Jesus then, and today, and all in between. And that puts us right back into realm of faith, as always, right?

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Israel practiced false religion....

Do you do drugs, Danny?***

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It seems that after 400 years of silence from God that He sent them...