ForumGarden

How Christians Know Jesus Actually Rose From The Dead:



Where Did the New Testament Come From? - Today's Christian Videos - GodTube

It was the Roman Catholic church that set the "guidelines" for what books should be included in the Bible. It wasn't Jesus, and it wasn't the apostles. it was the church. Enough said. By the way, I believe that people should study the lost books of the Bible. Why is that important? Because it shows that like I said in my other thread, the Roman Catholic Church makes it's own rules, and it decided to go ahead and throw certain books out of the Bible just because it didn't want them in there. Now if it can do that, what else can it do? Here's the link: The Lost Books of the Bible - The Hidden Truths

The point is that the Roman Catholic church is a dictatorship over the Bible. Christ never gave them the authority to claim a book for the World. Christ never gave the Roman church any authority at all. Why in the World would Christ have ever selected the Romans to be the ones to carry on with Christianity when it was the Romans who murdered Jesus on the cross? Nowhere in history does it ever state that Jesus chose the Romans or the Catholic church to be the dictators of Christianity. Nowhere does Jesus ever say that. And Jesus never mentioned bringing scriptures together to be put into a book anyways. If it was important to Him, He would have said it. And I guarantee that had He said it He would have never given the church the authority to remove books from any Bible that He saw fit. If Jesus were to have created a Bible, which He didn't, He would have never wanted it to be tampered with. I know Jesus's personality from His teachings, and I know that when He gave the order for something He meant it to be untouched and untampered with. But the Catholic Church has been tampering with the Bible since it's creation.

interesting reading truthbringer. I read some of the lost books of the bible about women in your link, it sure is heavy reading.

I once read something on the lost gospel of Judas, it seems very interesting, it suggests that Jesus himself indicates that there is more than one god and that he had an odd sense of humour, even being quite sarcastic towards his apostles whilst they gave grace at the dining table?

But here's something to think about regarding holy ghosts....I observed my girlfriend through the living room window from outside in my back garden standing at the foot of the staircase as if contemplating whether to climb them before venturing up, but suddenly hearing a voice inquiring what I was looking at? I turned around and to my amazement I saw my girlfriend sitting on a chair underneath a parasol in the garden?? I was certainly stunned as I had just observed her walking up the staircase indoors. How was this possible? A possible answer could be after watching a television program about illusionists. An illusionist was juggling a ball up and down in the air yet while the ball was in mid air the illusionist quickly showed another ball in his hand. The trick was an illusion, your mind had watched a ball going up and down in sequence when in fact at one point the illusionist instead of throwing the ball up, made the motion of throwing the ball up but in fact held on to the ball. The onlookers mind had merely imaged seeing a ball that wasn't really there, the brain had fooled itself because of what it had expected to see.

Welcome to FG, Percy.

TruthBringer;1345788 wrote: It was the Roman Catholic church that set the "guidelines" for what books should be included in the Bible. It wasn't Jesus, and it wasn't the apostles. it was the church. Enough said. By the way, I believe that people should study the lost books of the Bible. Why is that important? Because it shows that like I said in my other thread, the Roman Catholic Church makes it's own rules, and it decided to go ahead and throw certain books out of the Bible just because it didn't want them in there. Now if it can do that, what else can it do? Here's the link: The Lost Books of the Bible - The Hidden Truths

The point is that the Roman Catholic church is a dictatorship over the Bible. Christ never gave them the authority to claim a book for the World. Christ never gave the Roman church any authority at all. Why in the World would Christ have ever selected the Romans to be the ones to carry on with Christianity when it was the Romans who murdered Jesus on the cross? Nowhere in history does it ever state that Jesus chose the Romans or the Catholic church to be the dictators of Christianity. Nowhere does Jesus ever say that. And Jesus never mentioned bringing scriptures together to be put into a book anyways. If it was important to Him, He would have said it. And I guarantee that had He said it He would have never given the church the authority to remove books from any Bible that He saw fit. If Jesus were to have created a Bible, which He didn't, He would have never wanted it to be tampered with. I know Jesus's personality from His teachings, and I know that when He gave the order for something He meant it to be untouched and untampered with. But the Catholic Church has been tampering with the Bible since it's creation.


Okay, now I'm confused! Outside of the Bible, we don't know anything about Jesus, aside from a Jewish endtime movement being formed around this person. From the historical analysis of early Christianities, it seems conclusive that the Catholic Church was constructed later on, and orthodox Christian beliefs of today (such as the Trinity) are not found in any of the early Christian groups. And if we take a look at the earliest Christian sects, we find a dramatic range of beliefs that go way beyond the main Christian sects of today.

For example, the Jesus of the Jewish Christian sect - the Ebionites, was the Messiah in the same sense that King David and other men of the Old Testament were messiahs -- the term literally means a man who is anointed by God for a special divine task. Their christ was a man, and not a god who had come down to earth.

Many of the gentile converts to early Christianity created a doctrine of Docetism -- that Jesus Christ was not a real flesh and blood man, but instead had a "spiritual" body of some sort. The most prominent Docetist was Marcion of Sinope, who became a powerful bishop of the early Church in Asia Minor. Marcion had a dualist teaching similar to Gnosticism -- that the God of the Old Testament - Yahweh, was an evil demiurge, and completely unrelated to Jesus the Messiah. Marcion actually created the first collection of books -- or bible, with one Gospel - of Luke, which was either altered from the one we are familiar with today, or was the actual original Gospel of Luke, and the later one that we know of is the forgery! We have no way of knowing for sure, and likewise we are limited in what we know of the Marcion Christians and the Ebionites, because all of their books were burned by later Church leaders as heretical. We wouldn't have even known Marcion existed if the early Church father - Tertullian, hadn't written a challenge of Marcion's doctrines called Against Marcion.

You are correct that the Catholic Church is responsible for the collection of books of the Bible we have today, but if there was an historical Jesus, there is no way of knowing if he was represented by the apocryphal books. If the Catholic Church changed the original manuscripts of these books, we have no way of knowing the difference because there are no original manuscripts of any of the books of the Bible! They were all hand-copied by scribes from previous scrolls, and both minor and major errors, along with omissions and additions to texts -- were also added over the years, and can be demonstrated by examining and comparing later manuscripts with the earliest ones.

percy;1346052 wrote: interesting reading truthbringer. I read some of the lost books of the bible about women in your link, it sure is heavy reading.

I once read something on the lost gospel of Judas, it seems very interesting, it suggests that Jesus himself indicates that there is more than one god and that he had an odd sense of humour, even being quite sarcastic towards his apostles whilst they gave grace at the dining table?

But here's something to think about regarding holy ghosts....I observed my girlfriend through the living room window from outside in my back garden standing at the foot of the staircase as if contemplating whether to climb them before venturing up, but suddenly hearing a voice inquiring what I was looking at? I turned around and to my amazement I saw my girlfriend sitting on a chair underneath a parasol in the garden?? I was certainly stunned as I had just observed her walking up the staircase indoors. How was this possible? A possible answer could be after watching a television program about illusionists. An illusionist was juggling a ball up and down in the air yet while the ball was in mid air the illusionist quickly showed another ball in his hand. The trick was an illusion, your mind had watched a ball going up and down in sequence when in fact at one point the illusionist instead of throwing the ball up, made the motion of throwing the ball up but in fact held on to the ball. The onlookers mind had merely imaged seeing a ball that wasn't really there, the brain had fooled itself because of what it had expected to see.


Here's something that might help your research even further Percy:

YouTube - Eric Phelps Leo Zagami debate on Investigative Journal 2/19/08

Glad to see that you are also having the courage to look outside the box on this one.

I must also add that I have for a long time now followed the doctrine of Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas where Jesus states that "where there are three Gods, they are Gods. Where there are two or one, I am with Him." So anything more than the Male and Female aspect of God along with the Child of God (The Christ, which represents both the Male and Female as well, and the merger of the two sexes, which Jesus put great emphasis on in the Gospel of Thomas) (the male and female aspect being as one), than anything further than that is worshiping false idols in my opinion. So we have basically the Two Gods or aspects of God being broken into 5 parts but still representing the whole. I have covered this greatly in my other posts though but basically the 5 parts are as I mentioned, the Male and Female aspect of God, the Child of God, the Mother, and the Father, as well as the Holy Spirit, As One. Jesus also completes this message in the Gospel of Thomas by talking about the 5 trees in Heaven.

recovering conservative;1346071 wrote: Okay, now I'm confused! Outside of the Bible, we don't know anything about Jesus, aside from a Jewish endtime movement being formed around this person. From the historical analysis of early Christianities, it seems conclusive that the Catholic Church was constructed later on, and orthodox Christian beliefs of today (such as the Trinity) are not found in any of the early Christian groups. And if we take a look at the earliest Christian sects, we find a dramatic range of beliefs that go way beyond the main Christian sects of today.

For example, the Jesus of the Jewish Christian sect - the Ebionites, was the Messiah in the same sense that King David and other men of the Old Testament were messiahs -- the term literally means a man who is anointed by God for a special divine task. Their christ was a man, and not a god who had come down to earth.

Many of the gentile converts to early Christianity created a doctrine of Docetism -- that Jesus Christ was not a real flesh and blood man, but instead had a "spiritual" body of some sort. The most prominent Docetist was Marcion of Sinope, who became a powerful bishop of the early Church in Asia Minor. Marcion had a dualist teaching similar to Gnosticism -- that the God of the Old Testament - Yahweh, was an evil demiurge, and completely unrelated to Jesus the Messiah. Marcion actually created the first collection of books -- or bible, with one Gospel - of Luke, which was either altered from the one we are familiar with today, or was the actual original Gospel of Luke, and the later one that we know of is the forgery! We have no way of knowing for sure, and likewise we are limited in what we know of the Marcion Christians and the Ebionites, because all of their books were burned by later Church leaders as heretical. We wouldn't have even known Marcion existed if the early Church father - Tertullian, hadn't written a challenge of Marcion's doctrines called Against Marcion.

You are correct that the Catholic Church is responsible for the collection of books of the Bible we have today, but if there was an historical Jesus, there is no way of knowing if he was represented by the apocryphal books. If the Catholic Church changed the original manuscripts of these books, we have no way of knowing the difference because there are no original manuscripts of any of the books of the Bible! They were all hand-copied by scribes from previous scrolls, and both minor and major errors, along with omissions and additions to texts -- were also added over the years, and can be demonstrated by examining and comparing later manuscripts with the earliest ones.


Very interesting that you mention that. I've always had a problem with the references to Hell in the Gospel of Luke the way it is written as having been said by Jesus and or having to do with Jesus. It never sounded to me like anything Jesus would want to have any part of. The eternal burning punishment and torture of another Soul always seemed contrary to my heart as to what Jesus would want or even allow for that matter as His Spiritual form (Christ). I especially don't believe Jesus's real Father (as He alludes to in the Gospel of Thomas), aka - All of our real Father, would ever allow for such a disgusting thing to take place. Although I must admit, there have been a few times in my Life where I tried to force myself to swallow the idea of it and even preach it a bit simply because it was written in the Bible. Big mistake on my part. But as I have already said I personally am now 100% convinced that Hell is the creation of the Roman Catholic church in one way or another as you mentioned with the altering of the original version and I believe it directly leads back to the Vatican and the Romans and that the creation of Hell was a sure bet to get people to do their best to keep coming back to the Catholic church to repent for their sins and therefore being able to pay more money to the Church for this and for that and for what not. Basically a mechanism for control. And as I mentioned before Jesus never mentions anything about Hell in the Gospel of Thomas He only mentions things about Heaven. And also alludes to the fact that everything is energy. It gets closer in the Gospel of Thomas than anywhere else for that to be the absolute Truth. But if certain people don't get to go to Heaven, I don't know exactly where they go, but I can tell you that I sure don't believe they are punished for eternity. Not for only a single lifetime of unbalanced sin vs good works. If anything the correct punishment for that would obviously be another lifetime where they must atone for what they had done in the previous. Now that seems alot more balanced to me.