quote:

Originally posted by Phil Knox:
Nico

Take note that the Gnostic bible is the knowledge base for the DaVinci Code novel.

Gnostics denied the deity of Christ.

The Gnostic gospels are not based on eyewitness accounts.

Gnostic gospels also make sex a sacrament.

Radical feminists use Gnostic gospels to support their ideas.

How's that for starters?

I've researched the Gnostics before; it's difficult to find historical data in the midst of the occult material that was associated with Gnosticism in the early 20th century.

Although many of the principles of their beliefs are... well, a little hard to swallow to say the least (Jehovah as a flawed demiurge, phallic statues, esoteric knowledge leading to a convenient enlightenment) Several of the apocryphal texts that they use are interesting. I'd also like to mention that your youtube video was surprisingly accurate.

The mainstream has flaws, the gnostic movement has flaws. I believe Douglas is saying that the Gnostics have material worth salvaging. And in his opinion, are more on-track, perhaps, than the mainstream. I happen to disagree, but Douglas is no man to put under the label of a single group!

I'm somewhat reminded of Ray's story "The Man". How the captain wanted, essentially, to "track down" Christ, as though he were quarry. In a similar fashion, it seems that many self-proclaimed gnostics I've spoken with seek some sort of esoteric knowledge from scripture, desperately hoping to invoke some sort of awakening. Scientific, technical study, if you will, in quiet desperation.

And I believe that is what Nard is calling a mistake, which it is. Because the truth is smack dab in plain sight, the truth of agape, of love for God, your fellow man, and creation, and Christ doesn't hide it.

And I believe that Doug may agree with you on that point, Nard, but he loves rejoicing in study of the scripture, while holding and obeying the love of those commands. And there's no harm in that, because if seen through the prism, one can only see clearer.

quote:

Erwin Lutzer

Nard, thanks for the Erwin Lutzer link! I watched a few parts of the lecture. I think this is the one I like best:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=P5LqLocHuI8&feature=user

Double post

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Nico,

quote:

The gates of Hell are locked from the inside!

Hell, no!

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:

quote:

The gates of Hell are locked from the inside!

Hell, no!

Oh, Douglas. You've opened up a GIGANTIC can of worms.

And I'm glad you did.

Doug Spaulding~

Erwin Lutzer had a public debate with Bishop Spong. Spong didn't do well.

quote:

Originally posted by Nico:
Oh, Douglas. You've opened up a GIGANTIC can of worms.

And I'm glad you did.

I like to let the worms out for air every once in awhile.

Actually, I like this one better.

quote:

Originally posted by embroiderer:
Scripture makes it very clear that mere man DID NOT write the bible. Come on Spaulding. Don't be such a coward now.

I certainly wouldn't want to be the one accused of writing Leviticus!

Leviticus 21:9: If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.

Leviticus 21:10: If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife — with the wife of his neighbor — both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

Leviticus 24:19-20: If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured.

Leviticus 11:9-12: Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales. But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales—whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water—you are to detest. And since you are to detest them, you must not eat their meat and you must detest their carcasses. Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be detestable to you.

So eating shellfish is an abomination.

Leviticus 12:1-5: The LORD said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites: ‘A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period. On the eighth day the boy is to be circumcised. Then the woman must wait thirty-three days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over. If she gives birth to a daughter, for two weeks the woman will be unclean, as during her period. Then she must wait sixty-six days to be purified from her bleeding.

If you are a woman you are obviously better to give birth to a boy instead of a girl, because then you won’t be as unclean for as long.

Leviticus 19:19: Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.

This must have been an important one as it was repeated in Deuteronomy 21:11 - Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.

Leviticus 19:26: Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it.

I guess don’t order a steak cooked rare from now on.

Leviticus 19:27: Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

Wow! I'm going to have to get out of the military.

Somewhere along the line we have decided which of the 613 Commandments we will follow and which we will not.

Coward? Never!

Ever heard of the New Testament?

Watched a very little of the Spong video; enough to be certain that, had he been in the Soviet Union, the Communists would have left him alone.

Dr. James Dobson threw the book at Barack Obama for stating the very things Doug Spaulding is stating above.

Right on, Braling II: Doug Spaulding is obviously oblivious to the fact that Jesus is the ONLY ONE who kept the entire Jewish law.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil Knox:
Dr. James Dobson threw the book at Barack Obama for stating the very things Doug Spaulding is stating above.

Unfortunately, Dobson has been known to quote those same passages he complained about Obama quoting, when they supported one of his own viewpoints. Kind of hypocritical...

theoctobercountry
Oh Yeah? Like what?

quote:

Originally posted by Braling II:
Ever heard of the New Testament?

I think you may have missed the point, a bit, of Spaulding's post. This is what I got out of it, at any rate...

How on earth is it possible to reconcile the very angry, warlike God of the Old Testament with the more loving, "turn the other cheek" God that is found in the New Testament, as personified in Jesus? The two sets of teachings seem to take exact opposite viewpoints.

Now, if you read the material with the idea in mind that those who wrote it were speaking from a very specific cultural viewpoint from a particular time and place in history, then it makes sense. But then, that kind of negates the "absolutely divine and infallible" view of the Bible in general...